Angel
by wryter501
Summary: "He didn't jump, he was pushed..." A funeral interrupted by a cryptic message. Suicide or murder? To find the answers and bring the murderer to justice, Arthur will also need to find, and trust, the street kid known as 'Angel' - and earn his trust in return. Modern A/U, no magic, no slash.
1. Messenger 1

**Part 1: Messenger**

 _(Now)_

 _So… we're supposed to talk to you like you can hear us, even though… no one knows if you can._

 _I already said I'm sorry. Don't know if you remember that, or if you… heard me, at all. But I am. I hope you know._

 _Wherever you are._

 _Um, your dad came by earlier. I guess if you can hear, you already know that, but… anyway, I have to admit, I more or less hid from him. He was angry and I never thought he liked me anyway, y'know, and… I just get the feeling he wouldn't like me being here._

 _Gwen said she was coming back later. After her shift, y'know. She said you better wake up soon, because the partner they stuck her with in the meantime… well, she said he's a bigger jerk than you, and that's saying something… Right?..._

 _There's been a pretty steady stream of cops, actually, it's like your friends don't want you to be here alone. Wish you could see. I think you'd laugh, maybe. Band of Brothers stuff. Brothers in blue._

 _She said she'd give me a ride home, but, I dunno. She said I could stay at her dad's place again, instead of yours, but._

 _Dunno what I would even do there. Probably just start walking and end up here, anyway._

 _I'm okay, by the way. Docs checked me out and everything…_

 _This… feels weird. Does it feel weird to you? I don't know if it even feels like you can hear me. So.. maybe some kinda sign? Like, hey, you're boring me._

 _Tell me, Shut up, Angel._

 _Please?_

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

(Then)

Arthur hated retirement parties. The end of someone's career, for whatever reason. Casseroles and punch, spiked or not. People trying to figure out what to say.

And funerals were much worse.

The service hadn't been too bad, even if it had been held in a high school auditorium rather than a church. Family and former partners in the front rows of course, old friends and close friends. He'd been in the back, by choice and because he'd only known the old man a few years, professionally and before he'd transferred precincts last year. And prayers had been said over the grave, he was sure – he said one himself, just for that reason, so others must have done it too – even if they hadn't been _official_.

McLeod hadn't come to the service at all; she hadn't known Ben personally. She was here now, though, she'd found him as soon as she arrived – fresh from today's shift, with a temporary partner out of respect for Arthur's request for time off, for the funeral - not as out of place in uniform as she'd worried, but she hadn't wanted to stand in one place. Not even with Arthur… though he had to admit, he probably wouldn't want to stand next to him, either – ever, maybe, but especially not today.

One hand held his forgotten punch – not spiked strongly enough; Gwaine was either losing his touch or not here at yet or too torn up over the old guy's death to upend a vodka over the crystal punchbowl. The other was tucked in his pocket, as he stared unseeing out the slider of the old man's house at the backyard.

Needed mowing.

Behind him – he didn't turn – was a hall to the entryway of the house, where a little table held two framed photos and a guest book he hadn't signed. One photo showed Benjamin Angus looking maybe nineteen, his first official picture when he'd made the force. The other was recent, his last promotion to lieutenant of the Nineteenth. In both he wore the same expression. Not stern exactly, but serious, as if he'd seen life and knew it for a bitch. And was willing to go above and beyond to make the world a better place, anyway.

And yet, for those who knew him best, the twinkle of humor lurked there too, even in pictures.

Briefly, the sound of a breathless chuckle reached his ears, over the low murmur of awkward small-talk and the moaning of sympathy around Ben's old sister or cousin or whoever had organized this thing. _Her_ laughter.

Gwennie McLeod. His new partner, and actually, come to think, the longest-lasting since Gwaine and last year. Because she was the perfect partner for him. Patient and sympathetic where he was brusque and quick-tempered, and yet she could draw him up out of one of his self-pitying funks with one flash of those brown eyes and a quick retort.

And, she was one of the very few females of any age he'd ever met who couldn't be fooled by his boy-next-door good looks and turn-on-the-charm smile. Seemed like she saw through his shit every time, and he respected her for it.

He was turning to see her before he'd realized it, short but trim and tough in her beat-cop uniform, her dark hair in its perpetual knot at the back of her neck. Then he realized why that laugh, however brief, had escaped her at a funeral.

Gwaine was talking to her. Tall and dark-haired and attractive in a wild, unshaven sort of way, Arthur supposed, his former partner when they had both carried detective's badges. Christopher I'll-give-you-hell-if-you-use-my-first-name Gwaine had not only kissed the proverbial blarney stone, but had chipped a piece off to carry away with him in his pocket.

The two people he'd have been happy never to have in the same room. For many reasons.

With the vague idea of separating them – threatening Gwaine off or dragging Gwen away physically – he pivoted and made his way across the living room. Old shag carpet and wilty overgrown houseplants and sagging outdated upholstery – to the pair.

"What is this, former and current?" he said. "You two talking about me?"

Gwen rolled her eyes. Enormous, expressive eyes of dark chocolate brown. "You always think everyone is talking about you."

"You make me sound paranoid," he countered

"If the shoe fits," Gwaine said, about half as boisterously as he otherwise might have.

"Is he hitting on you?" Arthur said, pointedly ignoring Gwaine. "Because I can ask him to stop."

"With your fist?" she inquired sweetly, but there was a snap to her eyes now. "I could've asked him to stop, if he was hitting on me -"

"Someone should," Gwaine grumbled, not really put out, but definitely not in his usual good spirits. Then again, no one was. Not here, and now. "It didn't look like you were going to, so…"

"Partners, remember," Arthur growled.

"Okay, Penn," Gwaine said, not taking his irritation seriously for one second. "Don't get your shorts in a bunch."

"And neither of you," Gwen said, deliberately keeping her voice even, though her hands lifted to her hips, "talk about me as if I wasn't standing right here."

Awkward pause in awkward fill-in-the-blank banter, because, even through the kidding, they couldn't really forget where they were, or why they were there. Lighten the moment, but only a moment.

And into the silence between the three of them, a voice intruded – elderly female. "Oh, that's awful. That's so sick. Who would do such a thing?"

Ben's sister, Arthur thought, Clara or Mary or Winnifred or something. The three of them – and several others with the same law-enforcement instincts – turned to the corner of the front room where the lady was ensconced, buttressed by other formidable middle-aged females in unrelieved black.

She was holding a small black device in her hand as if she'd been unexpectedly handed a dead mouse in a fine china cup. Gwaine moved instantly, heading to her side, Arthur not far behind and Gwen trailing them both.

"What's the matter, Gladys?" Gwaine said, crouching down beside her, the other ladies shuffling to give him space.

"Ben's phone just got a message," she declared, shaking her blue-gray curls, angry and upset. "An awful message."

Gwaine took the phone from Gladys' hand, and Arthur sidestepped to see his face. Expressionless, but his eyes were tight as he checked the small screen. He looked at it for what seemed to Arthur an inordinate amount of time; instinctively he reached for the phone. Gwaine looked at him for a heartbeat, and released it.

 **He didnt jump he was pushed. Im sorry. Alo**

"I can't believe it," Gladys sobbed, waving a damp tissue. Gwen snatched a few more from the box on a sideboard and handed them to the elderly lady. "Who would be so cruel?"

Alo. A name? Nickname? Code?

Arthur pressed a button for more information, and only found that the number was local, and not one that Ben had entered in his contacts.

"Gladys, Angus was the best boss I ever had," Gwaine told her in his best calming, don't-worry-the-cavalry-is-here voice. "I _will_ look into this, I promise. And whoever is responsible will get what's coming to him." She gulped, and nodded. Gwaine added, "I'm going to have to take his phone with me, though, if that's all right?"

Arthur was already trying to pick his way through the phone's history – forensics experts would deal with the number, who it might belong to, whether they could pinpoint the signal. But the saved log of incoming and outgoing calls and texts had been deleted – hours before the old man's death, it looked like. Hm.

Alo. A contact name, with a different number saved. Someone he knew, then? Someone posing as someone he knew? There was a hint of confession to the short message, Arthur thought.

No one had wanted to say the _S_ word. Maybe _murder_ was preferable.

Initials, maybe. A.L.O. A-lo?

"Yes," Gladys sniffed. "Whatever you need. Take it. Just –" She waved the fresh tissues and dissolved into fresh tears and the cadre of black-clad battleships closed ranks, nudging Gwaine and Arthur back.

Gwaine took charge of the phone and strode down the hall, through the entryway, out the front door, excusing himself to other mourners arriving and making their way inside. Arthur bumped into three he never saw, his eyes on the tension in the set of his former partner's shoulders in the cheap black suit – ill-fitting, as his own was; probably not his, or at least not for very long. And a cop's salary didn't exactly include things like tailoring.

He stopped on the postage-stamp front yard, tugging at his collar absently as he examined, as Arthur had done, the phone's message log, call log, and voicemail information with one hand. Arthur, for something to do, stripped his tie and stuffed it in the pocket of the suit-coat. He wasn't going back inside, anyway.

"Well?" Gwen demanded.

Arthur told her what Gwaine was finding out. "His logs were cleared the day he – died."

No one had said _killed himself_. Everyone had been shocked and said, _I don't believe it_ , even while privately admitting it made a certain kind of sense. An old detective forced into retirement by declining health, rumors of a cancer diagnosis kept quiet… a long walk and a quick bridge-jump was an initial shock fairly swiftly gotten over. He could see his partner thinking that record-wiping rather supported the conclusion of suicide.

"And this text message said…" Gwen prompted.

Gwaine read, "He didn't jump, he was pushed. I'm sorry. ALO." Gwen's eyes widened, then narrowed in thought.

"You thinking initials?" Arthur said.

"Maybe. It's a self-identification of some kind anyway. Did you see, that designation has a different number, in his contact list?" Arthur jerked his head in quick assent.

"Are we thinking – sick perv who needs to be taught a lesson," Gwen said slowly, looking back and forth between them, "or a possible homicide?"

"Either way," Gwaine said, "should we find this guy?"

Arthur met his eyes – no trace of devilish humor. Gwaine was rarely serious – it was the way he dealt with the stresses of their chosen profession. And when he was, woe to guilty and innocent alike.

"I'm in," Arthur said.

"Keep it quiet for now," Gwaine advised, shaking back his longish hair. "I'll see what my buddy at the tech lab can find out about retrieving the deleted information, tracking down both these numbers."

"Talk to the ME," Arthur suggested, and his former partner nodded. "I can go this afternoon to check out the bridge?" Without even discussing it, they'd once again divided the options and chosen an angle to pursue. They always _had_ worked well together. When they were working.

"And what am I, chopped liver?" Gwen demanded, her hands on her hips. "Tell me what I can do, I'll help."

"Nothing today, but thanks, McLeod. We will," Gwaine told her.

"Y'all here for the funeral?" a voice called over the fence.

On the front porch of the next house in the neighborhood in a pair of plastic lawn chairs, an old man with white wisps of hair around his ears and the back of his neck, whose feet didn't even reach the ground. His wife was next to him in the other, looking like nothing more than an enormous candle that had been melted in the seat and covered with a faded yellow-check tablecloth.

"Heard 'e jumped," the wife stated, as emotionless as the great lump of wax she looked. "Took a header off the Eighth Street Bridge."

None of them said anything. Arthur could feel Gwen's eyes on him.

"Suicides is eternally damned," the woman observed. As she might have told them, _grass needs cutting_.

Arthur turned to Gwen, feeling a roaring heat in his chest even as his skin seemed to cool all at once. "Loan me your piece?" he inquired pleasantly.

She put her hand on the Glock at her side, uncomprehending.

Gwaine said, "No, Penn."

"Oh, I think it's justifiable homicide," he said, still pleasant at the autumn sun was bright.

" _Arthur_ ," she said.

He looked back at the rubber-necking neighbors and said, "It wasn't a suicide, it was murder, and we will find out who did it."

The little man's mouth formed a round surprised circle, and his wispy white brows climbed his forehead. His wife melted a bit more.

"Cart before the horse," Gwaine said. "But in this case, I hope you're right."

He was letting his feelings get ahead of the evidence. But Ben Angus had died with Arthur owing him one. A big one. An un-repayable sort of one.

If it had been someone else, he'd have warned him off the case. _You're too close. Emotions can cloud your judgment._

"Cell phone," he said to Gwaine, a reminder of his task. Even though the dark-haired man had been his senior by a couple of years, and now outranked him. But those sorts of considerations had never mattered to Gwaine as much as results. "And see if you can't get hold of Angus' files back to the first of the year. Specifically if he left anything open when he retired."

"I'll look up his ex-partner, too. Leon Steele – you remember him, right? - left the squad about the same time as Angus this summer."

"What about me?" Gwen asked.

"Go home, take a shower, change clothes, take a nap," Gwaine told her, then pretended an idea had struck him. "Second thoughts, can I come with you?" He gave her his devilish grin and she shoved his shoulder, though she wasn't offended.

"What about you, Penn?" she said. "The bridge?"

"I'm going to walk," Arthur said. They nodded without saying anything; they understood that he wanted to retrace the old man's steps.

He turned to walk away – maybe it was more like, stalk away – hoping the activity would help relieve some of the confusion of feeling over Ben's death that the mysterious message had just stirred up.

Seven steps away, he glanced back. And rather than each going their separate way, he saw the two others in fairly serious conversation, and a particular look on Gwen's face that he recognized. A bit of shock, a bit of sympathy, and a bit of something he'd come to realize was intrinsically Gwennie McLeod. Something like, _I'm so sorry for you_ and _I wish that had never happened_ and _I really just want to hug you and make it all better._

Ah, damn. Which one of his secrets had his former partner just revealed? He was going to hit Gwaine when he saw him again, just on principle.

As she began to twist to glance after Arthur with that heart-in-her-eyes look, he turned his back on her.

He walked, taking the most probable route that Ben had walked, that night last week. Time of death, approximately 10:20pm. So it would have been dark, and quiet, and chilly. He'd met nothing and no one to stop him, as far as they knew. Cracked sidewalk, probably an occasional streetlight out, the rest of them buzzing orange and buggy. A few dogs barking as he passed.

And the bridge in the distance, visible from five miles. Not exactly a destination for a casual late-night stroll. And a bit odd, as had been Arthur's initial reaction, for a cop who'd probably pulled more than one floater from the river downstream of that bridge, dealt with the shock and sorrow of more than one bereaved family.

Then again, if he went the vodka-and-painkillers route, it might have been several days until someone was alerted and found him. And the eating-a-bullet choice would leave a mess… Arthur had never contemplated suicide, himself, but he expected the person and manner of discovery would be an issue of consideration.

Traffic wasn't busy, but steady, on Eighth Street. There was a pedestrian walkway separated from the road by a handrail-topped fence. Another, chest-height, separated the foot traffic from the edge of the bridge, leaving a lip of concrete-and-metal about twenty-eight or thirty inches wide.

He watched the stream of vehicles cross the bridge a moment, studying the area all around. It might be worth doing some canvassing of the nearest neighbors, see if anyone saw anything.

Slowly he entered the walkway, and he told himself it was the methodical pace of evidence-gathering, rather than hesitation over reaching the point of Ben's last physical contact with solid ground.

Bits of trash, dirt, grime. Discarded drink containers, paper, bottles, butts.

Crunch. Broken glass, or hard plastic, maybe, near the apex of the upward curve of the bridge. He shuffled a larger piece with his shoe, industrial-grade if he was any judge and rough-textured in a tiny square pattern. Like the tail-light of a car?

No skid marks like a driver had braked before a fender-bender type minor collision. But a full-speed accident at the speed limit of the bridge… would leave more broken glass, more pieces, more damage to the bridge itself, maybe.

He squinted up. Streetlight. Not uncommon. And a lot of crime scene investigation involved ruling out the irrelevant.

The upward arc of the bridge was gradual, and the height not so great that the other side was out of sight. He was distantly aware of another walker entering the pedestrian strip at the northeast side opposite him. But he had long ago lost any self-consciousness at carrying out an investigation with a curious audience. He continued on ten more yards, slowly, seeing no indication of where precisely Ben might have gone over the safety rail.

The black paint was flaking, tiny flecks stuck to his palm where he gripped the handrail, and looked out over the sluggish water, opaque gray tipped with hard, sunlit peaks the wind kicked up. The banks on each side were rough with broken concrete and scree, stubborn weeds now dying. You couldn't look straight down at the water unless you climbed over the railing…

"Don't do it man it ain't worth it," someone said. A drawling young male voice, more humorous than anxious – mocking rather than concern.

He gave the walker a quick once-over. Tall and skinny, he walked with a carelessly gawky stride, but his shoulders were slightly hunched under a grubby long-sleeved t-shirt, gray – or maybe just a really grubby white – number five in faded blue stencil behind a slightly-cleaner baseball in white. Equally grubby jeans with stains and holes, battered tennis shoes with mismatched laces. A navy sweatshirt and an olive-drab jacket both tied around his hips by their sleeves, though the day wasn't that cool. Hands in his pockets. Black hair shaggy over his neck and ears, John Deere ballcap with an added business logo low over his eyes. And a grin halfway between cynical and cheerful.

Arthur ignored the comment and insinuation both. "You walk this bridge often?" he asked.

"Never on a Sunday," the young man returned, but it held the tone of a joke. A teenager, maybe. Eighteen? Or younger, maybe little more than a kid just through a growth spurt. He slowed as he approached Arthur.

"Is it usually pretty busy?" Arthur pressed. "People going back and forth?"

The kid shrugged. "One or two an hour. Depends on when you're asking."

Arthur took a risk. "Last Thursday, about quarter after ten."

Eyes glittered under the fraying bill of the ballcap. "You talking about the latest jumper?"

"Thank you for your help," Arthur said between his teeth, and stepped past the young man, catching a whiff of homeless-hobo or trapped-in-a-portapotty or just-off-a-construction-job-shift. High-school-fall-sports, maybe.

He continued examining both the inner and outer safety fences for any sign of tampering, damage, or struggle – Ben had been a thickset man. Not light, and on the short side. To push him into the river from this bridge, it would have to be an up-and-over. Aware that the other walker had moved on, he did so as well, scrutinizing the scene.

One or two an hour, say twelve hours a day, meant upwards of a hundred people, maybe, had crossed the bridge since Ben had gone over the side – and no telling how much detritus from people before that. It would be a nearly-impossible job, forensically speaking, to try to collect evidence or dust for prints. Useless, probably, if they'd even send a team out.

All he concluded – when he reached the point on the descending northeast curve of the bridge where a jumper would splat instead of splash – was that there was no evidence that was conclusive.

Some instinct pricked the back of his neck and he straightened, turning back toward the southwestern end of the bridge, where he'd come from. The figure of the lone walker stood motionless – at that distance impossible to tell which way he was facing for sure, though Arthur would have put money on his own activities being the focus of the other's attention – for the space of three heartbeats.

Then twitched back into action, loping off the bridge and in the opposite direction of Ben's house.

Not, Arthur reflected, making his way back over the bridge in case he'd missed anything the first time, that John Deere was even the weirdest person he'd ever met, on the job.

* * *

 _I looked out across… the river today  
I saw a city in the fog and an old church tower… where the seagulls play  
I saw the sad shire horses walking home… in the sodium light  
I saw two priests on the ferry… October geese on a cold winter's night_

 _And all this time, the river flowed_  
 _Endlessly… to the sea_

 _Two priests came round our house tonight_  
 _One young, one old, to offer prayers for the dying… to serve the final rite_  
 _One to learn, one to teach… which way the cold wind blows_  
 _Fussing and flapping in priestly black… like a murder of crows_

 _And all this time, the river flowed_  
 _Endlessly… to the sea_  
 _If I had my way I'd take a boat from the river_  
 _And I'd bury the old man,_  
 _I'd bury him at sea_

 _Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth_  
 _Better to be poor than a fat man in the eye of a needle_  
 _And as these words were spoken I swore I hear… the old man laughing_  
 _'What good is a used up world and how could it be… worth having'_

 _The teachers told us, the Romans built this place_  
 _They built a wall and a temple, an edge of the empire… garrison town,_  
 _They lived and they died, they prayed to their gods_

 _But the stone gods did not make a sound  
And their empire crumbled, 'til all that was left_

 _Were the stones the workmen found_

 _And all this time the river flowed_  
 _In the falling light of a northern sun_  
 _If I had my way I'd take a boat from the river_

 _And I'd bury the old man,  
I'd bury him at sea_

 _"All This Time" by Sting_

* * *

The elevator dinged as the light blinked over to the number 3, and the doors parted on a rush of memories for Arthur. Three years he'd worked here.

Familiar faces, some new, nods of recognition and calls of "Hey, Penn, how's it going!"

Followed by the not-quite masked and awkward remembrance of two painful things. One, that he wasn't a detective anymore. Didn't work out of this warren of desks and computer screens and phone lines and file boxes. As his blue uniform – among the sloppy suits and casual street-wear – made glaringly apparent. And, two. That he was there because Ben Angus wasn't. Wasn't with them at all anymore. And retirement rumors had been submerged in the noxious sticky miasma of the s-word.

It was a good thing Gwen followed on his heels. Hers was a new face around here, and a gorgeous face – though he'd never be caught admitting he thought so to anyone – and took the attention automatically and deliberately off him.

"Hello, ma'am!"

"Penn, who's the new wife?"

"Naw, he's the wife!"

"Officer Penn, introduce me, man."

He faced the majority of the room – phones ringing, papers shuffling - with casual nonchalance. "Nineteenth, Officer Gwennie McLeod." He glanced at her over his shoulder, saw her chin up and her dark eyes snapping in a refusal to be intimidated. "McLeod, the Nineteenth precinct reprobates."

Protests, catcalls – "That's right, man!"

He added, "Gwaine's over there."

Gwaine was still at the same desk, the battered metal hulk facing another battered hulk where Arthur used to stash burger wrappers and rummage for paper clips and rubber-bands. The top was clean, the computer screen dark.

"I'm between partners," he said as an explanation to Arthur's questioning look. "You interested in trying to come back?" Not giving Arthur a chance to answer such a complicated and loaded question – in the headquarters of his old unit, standing beside his new partner – he added, "C'mon over here, it's quieter."

He scooped up a grease-stained manila file folder spilling pages out and led them back to Interrogation One, flipping on the light but not closing the venetian-style blinds. Making their conversation private from the rest of the room without arousing too much curiosity or suspicion.

"Lancelot's running late," he added. "You remember Lancelot from the tech department, right, Penn?"

Arthur grunted. He did. Martin Lancelot, a pretty-boy, in a Latin sort of way, smooth and shy – a combination that women seemed to find impossible to resist. He didn't have to try - the way even Arthur with his all-American football-quarterback, boy-next-door good looks and charm had to, sometimes - and women started throwing their–

"He's bringing the print-outs from Angus' phone," Gwaine went on. "Keep this out of the inter-departmental record, for now. I've got another couple of boxes, but this is stuff Angus left open, when he retired." He let the armful fall to the tabletop, where it slid away to Arthur and Gwen, who both reached for the same topmost file.

"Go ahead," Gwen said, but he pushed that one to her and grabbed another.

"We only have our lunch-hour," Arthur reminded Gwaine. "Switching beats." Gwaine would know that gave them more freedom – otherwise they would have had to grab some food while they patrolled – walking or cruising or whatever was best in that part of their precinct.

"Have you looked through this already?" Gwen asked Gwaine, leafing through the first file that had come to her hand.

"Only in a very general way," Gwaine admitted. "The type of case, how long it was open, what's still open…"

"And?" Arthur said. The one he held looked to be a fairly generic gang hit. Drugs involved, ballistics linked to an armed robbery and another unsolved murder, partial prints but no hits in the database, no witnesses, unhelpful grainy image from video surveillance.

"Drug trafficking, sex trafficking, a handful of murders relating to both," Gwaine shrugged. "Honestly? Nothing different than any of us are working on."

 **A/N: I did not want to start posting this story until it was done (because of the format) and it's not. I've got four chapters for sure out of ten total planned, but I've got another week of NaNoWriMo, and at least another, maybe two or three, into December to actually finish that original. At least that to finish "Angel", too. So I decided to go out on a literary limb and start this today to celebrate getting myself back on track with word count after having company for a week (family is more important than writing; it** _ **is**_ **in the same way that Mount Everest** _ **is**_ **) – and I'm planning to post a chapter a week and hopefully not miss any weeks until I'm caught up with my original** _ **and**_ **this one… Thanks in advance for your patience!**

 **Also, to clarify, while I'm again using core characters from the series, there won't be the 'team assembled' kind of endgame for the guys… this is a Merlin &Arthur-centric story (with a good bit of Arwen thrown in)… **


	2. Messenger 2

**Part 1: Messenger (cont.)**

" _Drug trafficking, sex trafficking, a handful of murders relating to both," Gwaine shrugged. "Honestly? Nothing different than any of us are working on."_

"Hey, sorry I'm late." Lancelot pushed through the door backward with one broad shoulder, one hand clasping another manila folder, the other adjusting his glasses – which, irritatingly enough, made him look nothing like a technical geek and everything like a Lenscrafters model. He stopped dead in the doorway, his eyes on Gwen.

She reacted to his reaction – as all women did – with a shy downward glance and a slight darkening of her already-rich complexion, an event that most would miss. Except that Arthur already knew her and the minutely-varying shades of her skin tone well enough to see it – a fact he hated, at this moment.

"Lancelot, McLeod; McLeod, Lancelot," he said brusquely, out of his chair to take the file and crowd the Latin playboy to the opposite side of the table. "What've we got?"

"Ah, um," Lancelot stammered, his shy-stud routine garnering him an encouraging smile from Gwen.

Arthur slapped the manila folder, minus the print-out, down on the tabletop in front of him. Gwaine hung over Arthur's shoulder.

"The last message on Angus' phone," Lancelot managed to collect himself enough to say, shoving his glasses up again, "was the only communication between those two numbers – a burner phone, message sent from mid-town, and the signal has been dead since that message was sent."

Gwaine grunted, reading – as Arthur did – that message at the bottom of the page. **He didnt jump he was pushed. Im sorry. Alo** "What else?"

"The number assigned in Angus' phone to the tag on the last message, A-L-O, was used sporadically over the course of this year," Lancelot told them, tracing his finger upside-down along the far left column, a list of ten-digit phone numbers, the single number highlighted.

Gwen pushed her chair back and leaned over the table on tiptoe to see; Arthur shifted to make it easier for her.

"Text messages only, sometimes but not always responded to by Angus, mostly setting up meeting times and places, I think, though that's best-guess talking, the abbreviations introduce a certain amount of doubt."

"They were familiar enough with each other to use those abbreviations," Gwen observed. "Even to the point of developing a private code, do you think?"

Arthur scanned the body of the texts, waiting for something to jump out at him, maybe a repetition of a specific time or place, his brain attempting to superimpose a sense of order or regularity. Ignoring all the sordid reasons any _other_ aging detective might have for regular clandestine meets.

"What the hell is this?" Gwaine said suddenly, pointing back down to the bottom of the page – evidently he'd been reading the exchanged texts more carefully, beginning with the most recent.

Before a week's gap, two messages only hours apart, on the day of Angus' death. The earlier one, **Time to meet. Come to 8st bridge ten 2nite. Alone. Tell no one. Or well toss ur boy.**

Then, just at ten o'clock. **Face time. Or well test his wings. No bells rngng 4 this 1.**

Backing up, from Ben's phone to the unknown number the previous day, **Tell me what you want. Deal with me like a man.**

Arthur skipped the entries, checking the time stamps for the messages. Sporadic, as Lancelot had said, until that last week, when there had been a flurry of back-and-forth, increasingly belligerent from the number assigned to ALO.

The first: **Need 2 c u, ther mite b**

Then, only minutes later, **Hey whos this**. No response. Odd, if ALO and Ben were already well acquainted. Unless… someone else had gotten hold of the phone? **Hey 4kr who r u…** Next, **U don't answer well have to find some incentive.**

Then, from Ben's phone: **Nobody. Just a friend.**

 **Bllsht. Who r u. Where r u. How much do you know.**

 **You misunderstand, im no one that can threaten you.**

"Okay, that's not at all suspicious," Gwen commented uneasily.

Arthur met Gwaine's eyes, dark and angry. They both knew there could be any number of explanations for why, but it definitely sounded ominous. Right up to Ben's TOD, and then nothing – _come to the bridge alone; he didn't fall he was pushed_ – as if this ALO knew there was no use in further communication. Though Ben wasn't found until the following morning, given positive ID a few hours later, the news made public – that is, outside immediate family and friends at the Nineteenth, two days later.

And the message had come just after the funeral. _Im sorry_.

"We gotta find this guy," Gwaine repeated.

"The other thing," Lancelot added, flicking the top sheet forward in Arthur's hands, "is that before this one-one-three-nine number, the ALO designation had two different numbers assigned to it."

"Over the course of –" Arthur checked the last page of the printout – "two years. Who changes their cell phone number three times –"

"Four, technically," Lancelot interjected.

"In two years?" Arthur finished.

"I wonder," Gwen said.

"What?"

"The last one is a burner phone?" She bit her lip, hesitating on her opinion. "Maybe each was a prepaid cell, with a certain number of minutes or texts allowed, you know?"

They considered. That made sense. But it also meant the relationship between Ben and ALO was important enough that the old man had received and updated the new number… and that the association was kept secret for a long time.

"Can we take this?" Arthur said to Gwaine, finally. They had to be getting back to work, or the sergeant would be on their asses all week about the lapse.

"Let me make you a copy," Gwaine answered.

"And all this?" Gwen said, gesturing to the scattered files, beginning to organize them back into stacks.

"Can you take them to your place?" Arthur said to Gwaine. "I haven't moved, and Gwen's over on Fiftieth. You're convenient."

"At least you didn't say, I'm easy." Gwaine flashed his impudent grin. "Yeah, they'll be at my place. If you need to get in and I'm not there… hm, I'll have to think about it. Here."

He handed the copies of the phone records to Arthur, who followed him from interrogation One, across the squad room to the communal copier.

"You – rode with Angus a few months, didn't you?"

"Yeah, back when I started. Before you. Still getting my feet wet," Arthur answered absently. He wondered if any of these earliest phone calls would correspond with any of his memories; his time with Ben had been temporary for both of them, he paired with Gwaine after his probationary period, Ben back with Leon, someone Arthur had never gotten to know well.

"I left a message with Leon. If – when – he calls me back, I'll let you know what he says," Gwaine told him, as Lancelot and Gwen emerged from the interrogation room.

They were too far away to hear what either said over the noise of the working floor, but Gwen tipped her head back to laugh at something Lancelot had said. And something in Arthur's chest growled.

"Thanks, Gwaine," he managed. "I'll see you when I see you."

Gwaine smacked his arm with the sheaf of originals. "Not if I see you first," he quipped.

At the elevator, Arthur didn't wait.

At the car, he thought about getting in and driving away. To avoid that sappy-blush look so many females wore after a few moments of Lancelot's undivided attention, his savvy partner reduced to… well, _that_ wasn't gentlemanly to say. His number on a post-it note in her hand – or hers in his – and she'd be just as vague and glowing as if… He cursed himself for even thinking it. Not helpful.

But, squad car. And partner. He'd probably be reprimanded at the very least if he ditched her here.

She came through the street door looking around in clear puzzlement, up and down the sidewalk in both directions, before she turned toward the car, bending to make sure of him, already in the driver's seat.

"Where'd you go?" she said, settling into the shotgun bucket seat, reaching for her seatbelt.

"Out for some air," he answered.

"Because the downtown smog is so much nicer to breathe than conditioned air," she teased, and he didn't answer, checking traffic before pulling out of their parking spot.

"So…" Gwen said, and he knew what question was coming. "What's Lancelot like?"

"No idea, I date girls," he said shortly.

She smacked his upper arm – either because she was trying to lighten him up on purpose, or because she hadn't noticed his mood at all. "It's just, he asked me out," she told him. "I mean, cup of coffee sometime, is all, but I don't usually do even that with someone I've only just met, but I thought, since he works at the precinct he's not going to turn out to be a creepy stalker at least, but you could give me a heads-up, if he's a serial dater, love-'em-an'-leave-'em type…"

"One night stand?" he said sourly, and bit his tongue on an even sharper comment about was that what she was looking for? "Sorry, it's not my business who you sleep – I mean, who you go out with. I'd just as soon not know, honestly."

She was nearly sideways in her seat, all attempt at levity gone. "What's your problem, Penn," she said. "I don't make a habit of sleeping with the guys I date."

"No," Arthur said rudely, his mind involuntarily recalling an incident early on in their partnership. "Just a hand-job under the table."

"That was a misunderstanding!" she retorted, her color rising noticeably, even in his peripheral vision. "I went to pat his knee and he shifted, and for your information, that was why we broke up, because he kept telling people – well, what about you, then? Jessie and Erin and Amy the night dispatcher – all since I've known you, and how many before?"

"I didn't sleep with them!" Arthur argued.

Immediately Gwen shoved a forefinger in his face, cocking her head with her jaw clenched in a clear nonverbal disagreement.

"That one time wasn't my fault," he said, and his uniform collar was suddenly too warm and too tight. "I was drunk and she wasn't, and she came on to me – and now who's got the problem?"

"You shut up," she said, tucking herself defensively into the corner by the door, crossing her arms over her chest. She was furious, by her expression – she was gorgeous when she was furious, he noticed, _passionate_ – but why oh why did he insist on shooting himself in the foot like this? "You just shut up, and leave me alone. Just drive."

"Yes, ma'am," he said shortly.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

 _(Now)_

 _What do you want to talk about today?_

 _Your dad just kinda gives you updates. On the case, the news from the nursing staff. I guess they caught all but one of the crew that did this. Listening to him talk this morning – he didn't see me, I was hiding again, y'know – he'll probably push for death penalty for all of them. And the whole squad would back him up. And maybe ask the judge to bring back some of the old-time punishments. Flogging and then hanging._

 _Hanging's too good for them. You ever hear that phrase? Hanging's too good for them._

 _Drawing and quartering. Or some damn thing._

 _Gwen doesn't care if I'm here when she talks to you. I mean, mostly if I go anywhere, it's because she makes me drive with her. Because she's kind of hard to say no to, when she's got her mind made up._

 _So you should know, I've heard lots of personal stuff about you. Some good, some bad, y'know. I guess a partner gets to know about as much as if they were family._

 _And, if you don't mind me saying, I mean if it ain't disrespectful and stuff, you should've married her a long time ago. At least saved her from Gwaine's attention. Or… maybe not._

 _Only… maybe there's rules about that kind of stuff. Marrying your partner._

…..*… …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

(Then)

By the time their last shift before the weekend was over, they'd exchanged enough politely necessary words to have smoothed over their argument earlier in the week. Mostly.

Arthur's cell phone on the top shelf of his locker – placed there for temporary safekeeping while he used the showers – was blinking a red alarm light to alert him at least one was new, since he'd set it down. He tugged his t-shirt over his head, the collar dampening from the contact with his wet hair, then picked it up and thumbed it to the new message.

From Gwaine. **Meet w/ Leon. 1/2 hour**. Then the address, sketchy directions.

Mentally estimating the time it would take to get there, he thrust his gear into his locker and banged it shut. He twisted the lock as he stepped into a pair of battered-comfortable running shoes, then tossed one strap of his bag over his shoulder.

Ignoring the shouts and conversation from others in the locker room, he stepped around to the women's side; the showers and changing area were separate from each other, men's and women's, both opening into the rows of gun-metal lockers they shared equally. He wondered how long he might have to wait, women were notoriously time-consuming in the -

Gwen was just settling a dark-purple canvas jacket over her shoulders – hair still in that tight bun at the nape of her neck – and caught a glimpse of him in the tiny magnetic-mirror on the inside of her locker door. She turned as she slammed it shut, a questioning look on her face.

He held up his phone and waggled it for explanation. "Gwaine texted," he informed her. "We're on with Leon Steele in half an hour – you want to ride with me?"

She hesitated, and it bothered him, though it was probably his own damn fault. Open mouth, insert foot was too damn easy, for him. Now – to mix his metaphors – he had burned bridges to rebuild. Again.

He stepped closer to gain as much privacy as possible in the noisy public space. At least no one else was in their row of lockers, though it was open at both ends and the ceiling cleared the top of the metal boxes by five or six feet. "Listen, Gwennie, I'm sorry. It's not my business at all, your love life..."

"Damn right it's not," she said immediately, but without any heat.

"I am sorry," he repeated. "I don't want this argument to mess us up for good. If he makes you happy, then –"

"Geez, Penn, it hasn't even been a week," she told him, "I haven't even said yes, I'll have coffee with the guy."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, all right."

"But if I want to," she added, "you can't be a prick about it."

"Hey!" he protested.

"And you can be, sometimes," she said narrowly, daring him to argue the point. Because if she hadn't been a cop, he thought she might've made a good lawyer.

"I will concede… jerk," he said magnanimously, as she reached into her locker for her shoulder-bag and slammed it to lock.

"Idiot," she said, coming toward him. "Ass, fool –"

"All right," he interrupted, letting a bit of exasperation show her that she'd won. "Come on."

Once in the car, he found himself racking his brains to try to think of some appropriate small-talk question or comment, that would be halfway intelligent, not awkward or banal. He was most interested, at the moment, in her romantic interests, past, present, and possible future – but couldn't figure a way to re-open the topic in a new and friendly and inoffensive way. He hadn't come up with anything, when she finally broke the silence.

"I've been considering prostitution."

She spoke calmly, a bit slow and vague, as if her thoughts had overflowed into her words a moment before she'd intended.

He knew better than to take the remark at face value, but the topic of his thoughts inevitably colored his perception. Anticipating retraction or explanation, he managed to splutter teasingly, "What?"

"Oh." She straightened as if jabbed with a pin, and glanced at him with a blush. "Oh, I didn't mean personally, I only meant – oh, gosh – I meant, I've gotten some of Angus' files from Gwaine, and I've been trying to corroborate the calls from ALO with action Angus took, or the case he was working, and there seems to be a sex-trafficking connection. But that so often goes hand-in-hand with drugs…" She hesitated.

"You think ALO might've been a hooker?" Arthur asked, gripping the wheel. He'd argue anyone til he was blue in the face that Angus did not pay for sexual favors, and never had.

"No... It's nothing definite, but I get a male vibe, from reading the texts." She sounded troubled, and he glanced at her again to see a wrinkle between her fine black brows. " _Wary_ , though – no actual information on their interaction, just meeting set-up."

Arthur didn't have an answer for her; he could only hope that they wouldn't find out secrets about their friend, that they wished they hadn't known. He performed a rolling stop, glancing left before turning right, and they rode in silence the rest of the way.

Gwaine was just setting the kickstand of his motorcycle when they arrived, on the sidewalk outside a chain-link fence that guarded a small squarish one-story with decade-and-a-half-old tan siding and a postage-stamp yard of sere grass. He set his helmet on the black leather seat and unzipped a matching jacket with the orange Harley Davidson logo on it, waving up at the house.

Gwen leaned forward to look past Arthur; he turned the key to kill the engine and followed her gaze. There was a porch-swing and a man on it Arthur vaguely recognized – jeans, white t-shirt, short neat beard, longish reddish hair – who raised a dark-brown beer bottle in salute as Gwaine leaned over to unlatch the gate from the inside.

"Leon Steele," Gwaine said, an obvious explanation, holding the gate for Arthur, who waited for Gwen to circle the car and enter first.

"Welcome," Leon said, to Gwaine's introductions. He didn't get up; Arthur noticed he wasn't wearing shoes, only socks, and thought he could hear both cartoons and bluesy music from the house. As Gwen accepted a seat beside Leon on the swing and Gwaine perched on the side porch rail and Arthur leaned against a support-post by the steps, Leon explained, "It's quieter out here. Wife and kids. Gotta love 'em, but they're noisy unless they're asleep."

"Gwaine told you why we wanted to talk?" Arthur began.

Leon nodded around a swig of beer. "You're looking at a murder angle of Ben Angus' death. I have to say, I hadn't seen the old man for almost three months, when… it happened. He seemed cheerfully resigned to retirement, though, and as far as I'm aware, the cancer rumor was just a rumor."

"There was a text from someone we consider a potential witness," Arthur said. "The day of the funeral."

Gwaine added, "What can you tell us about the person Angus designated ALO?"

Leon rested his half-full bottle on the knee of his jeans as his gaze drifted past Arthur to the far sky over the city. "Oh, _him_ ," he said softly.

"You know him?" Gwen said in surprise. She might have made it a point to claim a _told-you-so_ from Arthur over the gender of the mystery texter, but she wasn't like that.

"No, not really. Met him once a long time ago, saw him a couple of times after that…"

"What's his name?" Arthur asked, pulling the quarter-size folded printouts from his pocket, along with his pen. "ALO are initials?"

Leon huffed a wry chuckle. "No, A-lo. It was a joke. _Halo_ … kid goes by the street name Angel. If Angus even knew his real name, I never heard about it."

"Kid?" Gwaine said narrowly, exchanging a glance with Arthur.

They were probably thinking the same thing; they often had, on shared cases in the past. A _kid_ couldn't have hefted Ben's uncooperative bulk over the bridge-rail. Not without help.

"Yeah. Well, he was when I met him. Probably… eighteen-nineteen by now. He was…" Leon shifted forward, setting the bottle on the concrete floor of the porch by his right sock. "Angus' confidential informant."

Collective reaction of relaxing, from the three of them. CI was usually a symbiotic relationship, amiable unless something went really wrong.

"Go on," Gwaine invited.

"It was a… murder investigation," Leon said, his eyes dim as he probed memory. "Two… and a half years ago. March, make it two years, seven months. Female DB, found in an alley behind the hospital, only partially clothed, wrapped in a bed comforter. Flower print. Accompanied by young white male, mid to late teens, John Doe – we never got his name – half out of his head. Drugs, they said initially, though if I'm remembering correctly, his blood-work came back clean… hers was a clear OD. He was released, no one really paid attention when he insisted it was murder…"

"Except Angus," Arthur assumed.

"I couldn't tell you if that case was ever re-opened or solved, but… If I had to guess, I'd say Angus took an unofficial interest in the kid."

"Because…" Gwaine prompted.

Gwen pulled one knee up to the seat beside her, crossing her other knee over her ankle to listen in silence.

"Oh, just… the way he'd check his messages. The way, when he'd tell me, he had to meet someone – and then it was Angel – I'd realize he relaxed, from the faintest bit of tension that built little by little so you didn't notice til it was gone. The way he'd talk to the kid for half an hour – and it looked like the old man was trying to persuade him of something – and then come back to tell me five minutes worth of news."

"So they were friends," Gwaine summed up.

"There wasn't a lot he wouldn't have done for that kid," Leon told them.

"That makes a lot of sense, actually," Gwen remarked. She leaned forward reaching, and Arthur read her intent, passing the printed transcriptions of the texts between Angus and ALO. "Look. _Time to meet… come to the bridge alone, tell no one… or we'll toss your boy._ I bet you money that whoever your Angel was ratting on, found out."

"Found the phone, at least," Arthur added. "If they'd found Angel, it would've been him pulled out of the river."

"They probably know, though, don't you think," Gwaine said. "There was something about testing his wings or bells ringing, right? They were mocking his name."

"They probably threatened him to meet with Angus," Leon guessed, reading over Gwen's shoulder. "He'd've gone over that bridge-rail to protect that kid."

"Angel knew it, too – d'you suppose he actually saw?" Gwaine said. "That kid is the best lead we've got, Leon – d'you know –" He broke off as his own cell phone whanged out Bon Jovi's _Live while I'm alive, sleep when I'm dead!_ ringtone. He stepped down from the porch railing and turned his back for a minimal and perceived privacy.

"Where we can find him?" Arthur finished the question.

Leon sat back, thoughtful again and shaking his head. "They always met out-of-doors, no matter what the weather," he said. "Come to think of it, kid didn't have much of a wardrobe, either… I could show you on a map, or make a list of places?"

"There's a city-map in your glove-box," Gwen said to Arthur. The porch-swing swayed and the chains suspending it from the roof clinked as she rose. "I'll get it."

Leon watched her go. "I never had a pretty partner," he remarked. "Good thing, too, my wife is a touch on the jealous side." He grinned in a relaxed way, enjoying rather than resenting the fact, and leaned down to snag his beer-bottle by the neck again.

Arthur didn't know what to say to that. "I'm not married."

"I noticed." Leon pointed to his left hand, where he wore a thick silver ring he'd gotten from his grandfather on his mother's side, on his forefinger.

Because they didn't have much else to say to each other, they couldn't help overhearing a bit of Gwaine's conversation. "They need me when? And for how long? But I'm not going to be working for that what's-her-name, the b-… Oh. Uh-huh. No?"

Gwen came up the walk at a quick pace, took the porch stairs in one – and this time didn't sit, only handed the folded map to their host.

"Did you know him, yourself?" Leon asked her, shaking a bit of the worn creases of the map. "Pen?" And grinned at his own pun on Arthur's surname, as he passed the requested item over.

"Not personally," she said, settling into the semi-professional tone she used when conversing with strangers peripheral to the case. Caring-honest-trustworthy, but detached.

"But you're part of this off-the-books investigation, because of him?" Leon said, with a keen glance for her and a jerk of the pen in Arthur's direction.

Her shoulders stiffened just slightly, under the dark-purple canvas jacket, but her voice was mild – almost deceptively so – when she spoke. "It's what we do on this job, isn't it," she said. "We have our partners' backs."

Leon mumbled something Arthur didn't catch. And Gwen pretended not to.

Gwaine was just ending his call and turning around, when Leon made his final mark. "That's about it," he said. "As much as I can remember, anyway. I can call you if anything else comes to mind."

"Looks like that's your precinct's jurisdiction, Gwaine," Gwen said, leaning over and craning her neck to see it more right-side-up. "Except for this corner here, I think, right?"

"Yeah, about that." Gwaine took only a cursory glance at the map; he seemed simultaneously disappointed and excited. "I've been loaned out to the DEA, joint task force, rumors of a big shipment coming something this month, pure cut… Anyway, I won't have anything like free time for a while."

"It's all right," Arthur told him.

"I mean, it's a break I've been waiting for, working with the feds," Gwaine said; that was something Arthur already knew. "Listen, though, I'll spread the word among the boys at the Nineteenth, see if anyone knows him, have them keep their eyes out."

"What if we just text him back?" Gwen suggested. "If Angus was his friend, surely he'd want –"

"You're just as likely to scare him off as gain his cooperation," Leon interjected wisely, folding the map as he spoke. "He'll ditch the phone and abandon his hang-outs…"

"If we can get him picked up for something," Gwaine said. "Hold him for questioning…"

"Dangle a carrot," Arthur finished. A common tactic, actually, offering to let a lesser charge slide in return for cooperative information on a more important case.

Leon handed the map back, stood on stockinged feet as they descended the stairs, and leaned against the support post of the porch. Then added slowly, as if he'd only just decided to mention it, "One more thing…"

"Yeah?" Gwaine said, zipping his jacket.

"Be careful."

Arthur felt his eyebrows lift, and though Gwen seemed to take the warning seriously, Gwaine laughed outright. "We're not exactly rookies, Leon," Gwaine said.

"No, I mean… this kid, he…" Leon paused, scuffing one foot, staring out over their heads toward downtown. "Before Angus introduced us, he told me, keep your temper. Don't let anything he says get to you. I got the feeling, since he was young, and skinny – you've met guys like him, I'm sure – he got his own back, with his mouth. If he could provoke your temper, made him stronger, kind of thing."

Gwaine looked at Arthur, and his expression was uncharacteristically sober. Arthur felt heat rise in his face, and clenched his teeth.

Gwen seemed to miss the moment, asking Leon, "Did he do that with you?"

"He did." Leon ducked his head, watching his one scuffing foot as if it didn't belong to him.

"And?" she pursued – probably on investigative instinct, rather than anything more appropriate to a casual conversation.

"I slugged him."

"What?" Gwaine said. "A kid, and skinny, and you…" Leon had a few more inches breadth in shoulders and chest than either Gwaine or Arthur, maybe ten-fifteen pounds of muscle not yet diminished after his job change.

"I know," he spoke quickly, clearly embarrassed. "That's why I said. Just – be aware that he might. It won't do your case any favors relieving feelings like that."

Gwaine cleared his throat deliberately, and Arthur almost slugged _him_.

"Come on, McLeod," he offered. "Thanks, Leon."

"Keep in touch," their host said, raising a hand in farewell.

Just outside the gate, Gwaine said, "Arthur –"

"One more word, and I'll ram it down your throat," Arthur told him. Half-serious. Not really justifying his former partner's concern.

Gwaine held up his hands in surrender, picking up his helmet to straddle his motorcycle. "I'll let you know if we find anything on Angel."

"Thanks," Gwen said, opening the passenger door as Gwaine fitted his helmet in place. Sliding in the driver's seat, Arthur handed the map across the center console to her, and shut his door on the initial roar of the motorcycle's motor. "Do you want to keep this?" she asked as he turned the key.

"I'll probably scout the locations on my off time," he said. "Maybe stop by Angus' house, ask his sister Clara Mary –"

"Gladys," she said.

"If she ever heard anything about this kid," Arthur finished, pulling away from the sidewalk. Gwen waved out the window, presumably to Leon.

"I'll collect the files from Gwaine's place," she said, still gazing out the side. "I'd like to see if there's any good comparing locations to the times of the phone calls, and Angus' official movements afterward. See if we can't get an idea who he is or what he knows, that someone was willing to kill a cop over."

"Retired," Arthur reminded her. Not that it made that much difference. "And, they made it look like a suicide…"

She lifted her elbow to the ledge where window-glass met door, and bit a nail contemplatively. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure thing," he said easily, making the turn onto the main street heading back into the city.

"I'd like to hear… your side of the story." She shot him a look so swift he didn't have the chance to meet it, focused as he was on driving. "Your demotion."

"You want to know why they took detective from me?" he said. His voice sounded sarcastic and hard, but she didn't cringe. "Why they busted me back to patrol? What did Gwaine tell you?"

Another look – blankly innocent. Well, cross that off the list of what Gwaine might've said, the day of Angus' funeral.

He sighed. "We brought a guy in for questioning on a string of rape-and-batteries. Circumstantial evidence, and about this much of it." He held thumb and forefinger apart. "Had one of the girls about this far from talking, too."

"What happened?" she said. And it wasn't her professionally-sympathetic tone, the one that coaxed every last scrap of useful information from witnesses. It was bare, vulnerable.

"It was me. My fault." He grimaced; still he could feel that burn of rage. "Bastard taunted us, waiting out the time we could hold him – then just as we're unlocking cuffs and opening the door, he looks at me and says, _I'll tell her you said hello_."

"He found out which witness was going to testify?" Gwen said, aghast.

Arthur snorted. "I don't even know. I hit him. Off the case – turn in your badge and service weapon – you're lucky to escape charges…"

Brief pause. "For hitting him?" she said staunchly.

He smiled to himself. Because really, she could've gone the other way, sanctimoniously reminding him of the honor code, the jeopardy he might've put the case in, blah-de-blah. He added, "With a chair."

"Oh." She reconsidered, trying not to look obvious about it.

"One of the seniors spoke up, though. Vouched for me personally. Put his own career on the line to keep me on the force… Even as a patrolman, working the _long_ way back up to detective." He drew the word out sarcastically, and glanced over at her. "You'll get that badge before I will, now." Her skin darkened subtly with her blush; she looked like she wanted to protest, but wasn't quite humble enough to deny her desire. "At least I've finished with the anger management courses, though," he said. With forced cheer, making it a joke.

A handful of moments passed in silence, before she ventured, "Can I ask who –"

"Angus."

"Oh." And now she did truly understand. His motivation, and the debt that never could be repaid. "We'll find him, Arthur. We will."

He didn't ask if she meant, the informant Angel, or the man responsible for Angus' murder.

* * *

 _Someone's always coming around here trailing some new kill  
Says I seen your picture on a hundred dollar bill  
And what's a game of chance to you, to him is one of real skill  
So glad to meet you, Angeles_

 _Picking up the ticket shows there's money to be made  
Go on and lose the gamble that's the history of the trade  
Did you add up all the cards left to play to zero  
And sign up with evil, Angeles_

 _Don't start me trying now  
'Cause I'm all over it, Angeles_

 _I could make you satisfied in everything you do  
All your secret wishes could right now be coming true  
And be forever with my poison arms around you  
No one's gonna fool around with us  
No one's gonna fool around with us  
So glad to meet you, Angeles_

Angeles ~ Elliot Smith

* * *

 **A/N: I decided, since this chapter is essentially a continuation of chapter 1, that I wasn't going to wait a week before posting after all. However, I will wait a week, now, to post chapter 3. But by then, I'll hopefully be a NaNoWriMo winner!...**

 **PS, Sorry about the lack of Arthur &Merlin interaction… not yet, but soon…**


	3. Guide 1

**Part 2: Guide**

 _I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told,  
I have squandered my resistance  
For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises…  
All lies and jests  
Still a man hears what he wants to hear  
And disregards the rest…_

 _When I left my home and my family, I was no more than a boy  
In the company of strangers, in the quiet of the railway station,  
Running scared.  
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters where the ragged people go  
Looking for the places only they would know…_

 _Asking only workman's wages, I come looking for a job,  
But I get no offers,  
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue…  
I do declare,  
There were times when I was so lonesome  
I took some comfort there…_

 _Then I'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone,  
Going home…  
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me,  
Leading me,  
Going home._

 _In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade  
And he carries the reminders, of every glove that laid him down  
Or cut him till he cried out, in his anger and his shame,  
"I am leaving, I am leaving…" but the fighter still remains…_

"The Boxer" ~ Simon and Garfunkel

* * *

(Then)

"Hey," Gwaine's voice said through Arthur's phone. "I can't talk long, I'm on assignment."

Having picked up his phone from the bedside table and answered it blindly, Arthur blinked at the digital clock in the darkness. "At five past midnight?" he said, his voice sounding groggy and feeling sticky.

"Well, yeah, DEA task force, remember? Why, are you out? I'm not interrupting a date, am I?"

"No, I… drinks earlier, but… I've only just turned in." He turned over, in his bed; he didn't have to say that he'd had a few beers alone on his couch watching DVR. "What's up?"

"I got a call from the boys downstairs. Couple of beat guys picked up our boy Angel – well, _probably_ – on a solicitation charge about an hour ago. They're holding him for us, but I can't get there tonight, and they have to charge him or release him in the morning, and if they charge him –"

"That complicates our case, and we lose our leverage." Arthur pushed himself upright, slumped over his legs and the bed-clothes, to rub both eyes with the fingers of one hand, then pinch the bridge of his nose. He spared a thought briefly to wonder why _solicitation_ , of all charges. "All right, I'll go down there."

"Alone?" Because Gwaine was concerned about Arthur, and Leon's warning.

Pause. Not-quite-silence, Arthur could tell Gwaine was out-of-doors by the air movement against the phone's speaker, and other voices faint in the background. And really, it was better to work in pairs, with witness or victim or perp.

"I'll see if McLeod wants to come," he said evenly.

"Right. Let me know if you learn anything, or need anything else?"

"Yep." Arthur ended the call and squinted at the screen of his cell, obscenely bright in the darkness of his bedroom.

 **You still up?** he texted to G. McLeod. If she was sleeping, she'd probably have it set to vibrate; he'd give her five minutes before he'd assume she was sleeping, and go without.

In the meantime, he crawled from his bed and changed his flannel pants for jeans, pulling on a long-sleeve PD-logo navy tee. Toothbrush was a given, but he was debating whether it was worth the bother to pick up his comb, when the phone tucked into his hip pocket chimed the message-received alert.

 **Y?**

His eyebrows lifted. A bit flirtatious? In his experience, abbreviations were used based on degree of intimacy – the few times he'd communicated with his partner by text, it had been more formal. Professional.

 **Gwaine sez they've got angel in 19** **th** **lockup. Am heading there now.**

 **Pick me up?** And an address. It wasn't her own.

Arthur almost didn't. Didn't want to see her dressed slap-dash in today's clothes put back on, all wrinkly from some guy's – Lancelot's? – floor, and she'd either smell freshly-washed or freshly-

But he'd hear about it from her _and_ Gwaine, and he needed to keep the peace with both of them.

Arthur was surprised to arrive on a street lit with pink, purple, and blue neon, thumping with the base line of dance music. He stared at the short line of waiting patrons, the blocky doorman squeezed into a black-on-black suit, then keyed another message.

 **Im here.**

He was still waiting for an answer or some form of confirmation, when a young woman who'd emerged alone crossed the street toward him.

His attention was definitely caught by the silhouette of her figure, the way the heeled boots made her sway as she walked – though with the sexy assurance of being comfortable in them – as she pulled a jacket on over bare arms and fluffed her hair over one shoulder. It was a simultaneous thing, though, he both felt guilty for noticing a girl who wasn't – _oh_ , and recognized her for his partner.

"Hey," she said, settling into the passenger seat, transferring the file folder from it to her lap.

He appraised her more closely, both for the interrupted activity, and for the anticipated one. Dark skinny jeans, black suede boots. Her top was a shimmery dove-gray silk, clasped around her neck rather than held by straps or sleeves over her shoulders, but the jean jacket hid that detail of bare skin. She buttoned it from the bottom, halfway up, and began to twist her curls into the tight bun she normally wore at work. It surprised him, how sorry he was to see them go, and irritated him at the same time.

"I'm not interrupting a date, am I?" he repeated Gwaine's question with considerably more sarcasm.

"No," she said, taking no offense but a tissue from her bag – also black leather, but designed like a mini back-pack. Folding down the visor, she used automatic light and mirror both to tone down clubbing makeup. He had mixed feelings about that, too… "Just a girls' night out. I was getting tired of being hit on by boring drunk guys, anyway."

He straightened a bit in his seat, hoping he didn't have any stray scent of alcohol still clinging to him. Toothpaste and deodorant helped, but Gwennie McLeod was nothing if not sharp.

"You know, walking through lock-up like that, you're going to get hit on by drunk guys anyway – and a lot nastier and smellier than the frat boys in the club," he reminded her. Pushing the pace, just a bit. There wasn't a thing she could do about the perfume she wore, and it was subtly permeating his car.

She only chuckled. "At least they're not boring," she said.

"You have a strange idea of interesting."

Gwen laughed out loud at that, but didn't disagree.

The desk sergeant at the Nineteenth precinct was a middle-aged man, tall and narrow-chested, with a shock of prematurely-graying hair that looked as though he'd been pulling on it with sweaty hands.

"You're here for the kid Detective Gwaine wanted hauled in," he said, vaguely remembering. He shuffled papers held behind the high desk, ignoring the sound of phones and lively conversation of a downtown precinct at half-past midnight, then paused over one. "Oh – goes by the name Angel? We haven't got a legal name on him, sorry – Room 3, right over there. We had to take him out of general population, he started a fight and it was threatening to turn into a riot. Tell Gwaine he owes me." He handed the preliminary report to Arthur.

"I will," Arthur promised, slipping the arrest sheet into the file he'd carried in from the car. Gwen looked in the direction of the window-walled privacy rooms, intended for conversations that were not intimidating official interrogations. "Oh – what was the fight over, do you know?"

The desk sergeant shrugged, already turning his attention to other things. "Some hooker-acquaintance of them both, I think."

Hm. A bit sordid, maybe, but ordinary. Paired with the solicitation charge, noteworthy. But not really anything to give Arthur pause about the reliability of the witness.

"Thanks," he said, slapping the counter before pushing away.

Arthur followed Gwen, winding between desks and people representing both sides of the law, to the quieter bank of meeting rooms. All lit, all blinds open; the single guard stood with hands clasped over his belt buckle and a bored expression as he watched the controlled chaos that was, in Arthur's experience, fairly routine.

He nodded to acknowledge the two of them, but Arthur held Gwen back for a moment. She glanced at him, and understood, lingering in the short hall to watch through the window.

White male, Arthur catalogued his description mentally. Tall, thin, black hair a few months past due for a haircut, or a wash. Dark blue zip-up sweatshirt, hood hanging down in back, ragged jeans with holes and stains, battered gray Nike's hooked around the chair legs. Army-surplus rucksack, also battered, set protectively between his feet.

Posture – relaxed. Knees and elbows allowed to fall away from the centerline, rather than drawing in, which indicated he was un-intimidated by his surroundings. He hunched over a yellow legal pad on the table in front of him, pencil in hand - not doodling in small scribbling marks, but with wide, sweeping, confident motion.

Gwen made a thoughtful noise, and Arthur put his hand on the doorknob to open it.

The sound would have been unmistakable, but instead of startling and looking up, the young man jammed the pencil sideways between his teeth and ripped his artwork from the tablet, folding it both neatly and swiftly before stuffing it in a front pocket of his sweatshirt. Letting the pencil drop and placing it on the pad, he turned to them.

Thin face, strong bone structure, full lips. Intelligent, curious blue eyes, one of which was red and a bit puffy, probably going to be black, eventually.

And something that bothered Arthur, because he immediately identified it as an absence of fear. Nah, couldn't be. The room stank of fear. Everyone who sat the opposite side of the table stank of it. Fear of loss, fear of consequences, discovery, reprisal, fear of pain. Fear of the unknown.

But this kid… merely stank.

Street kid, Arthur thought – if it was Angel, it explained the outdoor meets, and the lack of wardrobe mentioned by Leon. At least the boy wasn't jittering or sniffling or weaving in place; the blue eyes were clear of mind- or perception-altering substances.

"Are you Angel?" he said.

"That depends on who's asking." Calm, on the edge of insolent, but a sort oddly humorous, rather than antagonistically belligerent. Like they were all just people having a joke, rather than two cops facing someone under arrest.

"I'm Officer McLeod, this is Officer Penn," Gwen said. "If you're Angel, we'd like to have a conversation, but if not…"

"Oh, in that case –" He made to get up.

Arthur shoved him back in the chair – belatedly thinking, _don't lose your temper, he's going to try to make you lose your temper_. Whether it was that, or some incongruous confidence or assurance, something about him irritated Arthur.

"How about a real name?" he demanded. No answer – no surprise.

"How about an ice-pack for your eye?" Gwen offered, as Arthur took the chair opposite the kid.

"No, thank you," he told her with a smile that had her smiling back. Arthur thought, he needed a toothbrush but not necessarily a dentist. "It wasn't that hard of a hit. I don't want to bother –"

"No bother," she said, reaching for the pad of paper in front of him in a nonchalant way.

"Ah," he said, flattening his palm on it as if it were a possession he was unwilling to release.

"Were you told you could keep it?" she said mildly.

He slid his hand away; she tucked it under her arm and moved for the pencil. "It's clean enough," he told her. "I haven't got anything infectious or contagious. So said the traveling clinic run by the People's City Mission, last week."

Arthur made a mental note to – oh, wait, they didn't keep records, did they. Irritatingly anonymous free health care.

"Be right back," Gwen told them both, sauntering for the door and giving Arthur a look.

Into the silence – watchful, knowing silence on the boy's part; who was interviewing whom? – Arthur said, "Do you know why you're here?"

"Solicitation charge, they said – but that was totally a misunderstanding."

"Is that so," Arthur said, pretending to read the report, tipping the open file-folder so that the black-haired street kid couldn't see it.

"I was minding my own business, car pulls up with the window down, I think, dude wants directions or something, right? I say, _can I help you?_ all polite-like. Guy starts joking around about favors and prices so I joke back with him, right? And before you know it, he's putting me in bracelets." The kid held up his wrists as if he expected Arthur to join him in outrage, but his eyes sparkled with mocking mischief. "And not the kind you can pawn the next morning."

Arthur studied him. Sure the solicitation thing was probably trumped up to give the beat-cops a reason to pull the kid in – if it was Angel – but he had the feeling the kid was talking big, too. There was something in the eye and attitude of an experienced prostitute, male or female, that this kid didn't have. A sense of loss, layered by however many years in the trade.

But he'd been wrong before.

He made a noncommittal noise. "You know it only makes it harder on yourself when you refuse to give your legal name and place of residence to the arresting officer. They've still got you by your prints." Which either hadn't been run yet for priors, or were in the process and hadn't come back. But someone like this always had prior charges.

"John Doe Fifty-One?" the kid suggested.

Which sparked familiarity – quick, bright, and gone before he could grasp it.

"And you know," Arthur said casually, as the door opened to admit Gwen, paper pad tucked under her arm, gel cold-pack in hand. "Angus isn't around to bail you out anymore."

"Sorry, Angus who?" Blue eyes at once fathomless and innocent, and they didn't drop from Arthur's gaze even in taking the cold-pack and propping his cheekbone in it, elbow on the table. With his shift of position, the smell wafted a bit stronger around the room.

"Benjamin Angus," Arthur repeated. "One of our detectives. Retired this summer… drowned in the river two and a half weeks ago."

"I'm sorry, I don't…" He shook his head without lifting it from his hand, but glanced up at Gwen, standing behind Arthur's left shoulder, the tablet held to her chest.

"You're not Angel?" Arthur pressed. "You didn't meet with Detective Angus to pass information? Leon Steele told us the old man had a soft spot for you – was that what got him killed? Or are you going to stick with, _I dunno nuffin, Officer_?"

The boy's eyes lowered, halfway through Arthur's tirade – intended to provoke or shame him into the truth. Into the silence, Gwen leaned forward, laid the pad down so gently it was nearly silent, face up and turned toward the street boy.

Damn, but his Gwennie was smart.

She'd shaded the second page lightly with the side of the pencil lead, to bring the minute depressions of his work into relief. Clearly the portrait of a man, head and shoulders, and – Arthur was nearly positive, even looking at it upside-down – Benjamin Angus.

The boy deflated, leaning over the table, gaze fixed on the shading. Then he lifted his free hand and spread long fingers and bony knuckles over the portrait, hiding Ben's face. "There's a row of portraits on the wall as you come in," he said softly, but without looking up. "This one is on the end."

From the corner of his eye Arthur caught Gwen's reaction of disappointment, tiny signals of sigh and slump that others might miss. But he said, "You haven't drawn him in the dress uniform of that photo, you've given him his favorite scarf."

The telltale stripes were still visible below and beside the boy's wrist. His fingers tightened, beginning to wrinkle the paper, then he sighed, relaxing his hand and smoothing it out again.

"You are Angel," Gwen said.

"Like the song says. Just call me Angel." Small, sad smile.

"Did Angus know your real name?" Arthur asked curiously.

Angel pulled his hand away from the shaded negative of his drawing, then shook his head, laying the cold-pack aside. "I wish I'd told him. Before…"

"Before he died," Gwen ventured, with genuine sympathy in her tone. Another thing Arthur lo- appreciated about her, that though she guarded herself as one had to, in this job, she didn't completely turn off her feelings.

"Before he was killed," Arthur said deliberately. And then Angel met his eyes. "We saw that text. You sent it, didn't you? That Angus didn't jump or fall – he was killed."

Angel didn't respond, only watched Arthur. And he found himself wondering, if Angel had been friends with Ben, how much might he know about Ben's friends? Arthur himself? What did he see when he looked at Arthur? Pretty-boy cop, shallow and careless and cold?

Arthur found himself wondering, what Angel's life was like. What Angel was like.

"Why did you send that message?" Gwen asked.

Angel twisted a bit sideways in his chair. "Angus was Catholic, did you know? And… they believe suicides don't go to heaven… and if anyone belongs in heaven, it's him, you know?"

Arthur _knew_. What was more, he agreed. But, "Is your claim truth? Or were you just lying to a dead man's family and friends?"

Angel glanced at the pad-portrait, then crammed the heel of his hand in his eye. "It was true." He sounded a bit hoarse, and cleared his throat.

Gwen swung one leg over the corner of the table to rest her weight and ease the tension in the room a bit, now that they'd gotten these couple of admissions, things they already pretty much knew, out of him. "How do you know?" she said. "Did you see?"

He looked up at her, again for some moments, and Arthur wondered what Angel saw in Gwennie McLeod. Then he looked at Arthur – who was a bit surprised at how much and how fast Angel understood.

"If I wanted to report a crime or turn myself in as a witness, I'd've already done it," he said. "I only sent the message so everyone would know, his soul wasn't damned because he'd murdered himself. That he'd ended his life because he'd given up… because he _hadn't_."

Arthur drummed his fingers. "Have _you_?" he said. "You saw it, you know who did it, but you're scared to say?"

Angel's eyes sparked blue fire. "Maybe I just think it wouldn't do any good," he snapped back. "Witness don't mean much when it's a nameless homeless kid, huh?"

Arthur remembered Leon saying, _No one really paid attention when he insisted it was murder… couldn't tell you if that case was ever re-opened or solved_.

"So help us build the case," he said. "Point us in the right direction." Angel crossed his arms across his chest and pressed his lips together, but it was indecision written across his face, not stubborn refusal. Arthur pulled a sheet from his folder, spun it to face the boy, and pushed it across the table at him. "Tell us, what happened."

They watched him read the printout of the texts, fingers keeping his place, lips moving once or twice to mouth the words soundlessly, but he hunched over it too low to really interpret his expression.

"Leon said you were Angus' CI," Arthur said softly. "You must have passed information on some pretty nasty guys? How did that work – he gave you the phone, and you texted him when you had something? He texted you when he needed you to find out about something?"

"I didn't keep it on me," Angel mumbled. "I mean, you _can't_ carry anything valuable, someone like me. I had it hid… I was afraid they'd find it…"

 _ **Who r u. Where r u. How much do you know…**_

"And someone did," Arthur said, trying to make his tone gentle like Gwen's. "You know who?"

"I followed, that night." His gaze was stuck to the printout; he brushed the words with as much care as he'd touched Ben's portrait. "I had a bad feeling, something was going to happen – the phone wasn't where I left it. I was… too late. Didn't make the bridge, and where I was on the bank, you couldn't get to the water… They went… the other way, and I… ran around to where I could… try to… but then I couldn't see him in the water anymore." By the time he was finished, Angel had the heels of both hands crammed into his eye-sockets, elbows hugged to his sides, knees clamped together.

"Where you were," Arthur said. "It was close enough to see, who pushed Angus over the rail?"

"Yeah." Angel's voice was hoarse, and he didn't drop his hands.

"So you'll help us?" Arthur pressed. "Tell us everything you know?"

Angel's battered tennis shoes came up to the seat of the chair, one then the other, and without showing his face, he wrapped his arms around the knees that hid the rest of him. Knobby knee poking through a hole worn in stained jeans. Another hole nearly worn in the elbow of the blue sweatshirt. Shaggy black hair in dire need of a wash, and the bit of skin that showed between it and the sweatshirt, where his neck met his shoulder, was grimy also.

"Mm hm." Muffled, but unmistakable.

Arthur was quietly glad they didn't have to threaten to file the charges the boy had been arrested for, or remind him that the murderers would know who he was, to coerce his cooperation through threats or promises.

He reached for the pad, opening his mouth to begin with the questions, since they'd gotten him in a cooperative state of mind, but Gwen turned to him with a bit of a frown, jerking her head in a nonverbal invitation to step out of the meeting room for a word. He complied, saying, "Excuse us for a minute."

Angel gave no indication that he'd heard, but Arthur noticed as he turned toward the door, that Gwen put a hand on the boy's shoulder briefly, before she followed. Though Angel didn't show he felt it, either.

Outside the little room, the noise of the floor intruded, short-tempered offenders and weary law enforcement, and the insistent shrill of multiple phone lines cutting through all of it. It reminded Arthur, brain and body, that it was – check his watch, _gosh_ – well past one in the morning.

"Do we have to do this now?" Gwen said to him.

"Why wait? We're here, he's here, and cooperating…"

"It's late," she said, mildly persuasive rather than argumentative. "We both worked all day – and have to again in seven hours – and he's just basically learned that a friend was killed more or less because of him."

Arthur twisted to look through the window, back into the room, where Angel hadn't relaxed his childishly defensive, protective, miserable position. "So what do you suggest?" he said. "Put him back in general population, pick him up in the morning when they release the charges? I can probably get another sick day, but then you won't be there when I question him."

"No," she said softly. Her eyes were past him, through the window on Angel as well. "He doesn't really deserve to spend the night in lock-up – and that's a really poor _thanks for your help_ on our part, anyway. Can't Gwaine –"

"He's literally out on assignment," Arthur told her. "And you know how hectic those hours can be."

"Unpredictable," she agreed. "What about a safe house?"

He grimaced. "Paperwork, McLeod," he said. "And permission. This isn't exactly an official open investigation. Would you want to try to talk the captain into justifying something like that?"

She suggested, "Maybe I could –"

"Absolutely not," he interrupted.

She gave him a half-hearted glare. "I was going to say, maybe I could ask my brother… but that's not really fair, this time of night, and I've no idea of his schedule at the firehouse yesterday or today."

He knew. He knew what the best idea was, under the circumstances, what would please her, but his whole being raised protesting hands and said, _Nooooo_.

Hell. Damn. There was nothing for it, was there.

"He can stay with me," he said aloud. "At least this one night. In the morning, I'll call in sick and –" The subtle pride that glowed in her eyes when she looked at him eased his reservations of _how bad can it be, really_. Somewhat.

"Thank you, Arthur," she said. "D'ya think, you could drop me off home, first?"

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

In the car, the homeless odor was more obvious, being an even smaller space than the meeting-room.

"Seatbelt," Gwen reminded Angel, half-turned in the passenger seat to see him in the driver's-side back.

"Oh, right." It sounded to Arthur, checking traffic and pulling out, like he stuffed his army pack down between his feet before pulling the belt across to the buckle. "It's been a while since I've been in a car."

"How old are you, Angel?" Gwen asked.

In the darkness and facing away from them both, Arthur smiled. Gwennie McLeod was invaluable for this sort of thing. Getting to know a witness or victim, asking questions and carrying on conversations not directly related to incident interrogation. Gwaine was better than Arthur, but Gwen didn't intimidate people the way either of them did. A gender thing, maybe.

"Dunno," Angel said carelessly. "Depends on what year this is. How old are you?"

"What year this is?" Gwen laughed incredulously, effectively ignoring his return question. "You don't know your age or the year?"

"Not important." Angel sounded amused himself, the opposite of offended.

"What is important, then?" Arthur ventured, curious.

"Mm… the weather. If it's going to rain, or get cold. Heat advisory." Arthur risked a glance in the rear-view, enough to see that the street boy was gazing absently out the side window as they drove through neon-lit darkness. "The day of the week."

"The day of the week?" Gwen repeated, gently leading.

"Yeah. Certain days, certain people in certain places will give you certain things for certain services rendered."

"For instance?" Arthur said, and it was maybe a bit too casual.

"You want to know if those solicitation charges were ever justified, huh?" The gleam of a wide grin – smile bright, eyes dark - from the backseat reflected in Arthur's center mirror. "Ha. No, I mean like, one guy will share a pizza if I do some janitor stuff. And another gal will save a sandwich or two from closing-time leftovers." A very deliberate throat-clearing. "Not all of us sit begging on Main Street with signs and cups."

"If you had a sign, what would it say?" Gwen said – jokingly, but the sort of question to get a surprisingly informative answer.

"Leave me the hell alone?" Angel suggested humorously.

"How long have you been living on the street?" she said then. Just the right tone of gentle curiosity. No pity, no judgment, no by-rote box-ticking.

"Few years." The boy sounded a bit less nonchalant, and didn't offer anything else.

"You have family in town?" she said. "In another town? Anyone we should let know what's going on?"

"Nope."

The silence lengthened. Arthur glanced at Gwen without moving his head; they were only a couple blocks from her place, now. And he'd probably be less forthcoming about himself with only Arthur. She was still turned to face Angel, simply waiting silently, patiently ready to listen. It was nearly irresistible to Arthur – he almost opened his mouth to speak of his own mother – and he wasn't even the focus of that attention.

"My mom never told me one word about my dad," Angel said finally, in a shoulder-shrugging tone that hid any deeper emotion effectively. "It bothered her when I asked, so I quit. She had a couple boyfriends – casual stuff, no sleep-overs, no other kids – before she got sick and lost her last job. We moved here with the last boyfriend, one summer. She told me he'd look after me if she… But."

Pause.

"I guess there's only so many times a guy can hear _I'm hungry_ from a kid that isn't his. He wasn't around much for a couple weeks, and one day when it got dark and I went back to the apartment, they said he'd been evicted. So…"

"Foster care?" Gwen asked.

"No thanks. I did well enough on my own."

Arthur could hear the grin in the kid's tone. "You are at least eighteen, though, right?" he said. "Otherwise we've got to notify family services."

Gwen punched his shoulder lightly.

Angel said, "We're all eighteen. Of course. No one really bothers asking, anymore."

Arthur thought, Gwen's prostitution connection. Angel's fight earlier in lock-up had been over a working girl. He was familiar with the life, somehow.

"What about Angus?" Arthur parked illegally on a corner just down from Gwen's building, but she didn't move to get out.

Angel repeated, changing the inflection sarcastically, "What about Angus?"

"If you're eighteen now, and you've been his CI for two years…" He wasn't quite sure, now, how to phrase his question.

"So?"  
"So did he know how young you were, then?" Arthur answered the belligerence of the tone, meeting the other's gaze in the rearview, again. "Surely he would have tried to do something for you…" Gwen was giving him a _look_ again, but he refused to say, _What_?

"I was eighteen then, too," Angel said saucily. "No, he…" a snort of bitter amusement – "wanted me to move into his basement. Finish my education, he said. Make something of my life. Said it to me nearly every time we saw each other."

"He sounds like a good friend," Gwen said softly. Angel didn't answer; after a moment she reached back to slap his knee affectionately. "This is me. I'll see you tomorrow, sometime?"

"It's already tomorrow," Angel joked, as she slid from the car, purse in hand.

She bent to wave at them through the window before turning to walk to her building's main door. Arthur watched her in the side mirror as long as he could, then twisted in the seat – to see Angel doing the same thing through the back window. He faced forward before Arthur could turn, again, and grinned.

"To make sure she gets home all right?" the street boy suggested, and this time, his irony didn't have an edge.

"Partners watch each others' backs," he said neutrally, as Gwen disappeared through the front door of her building. "It's about ten-fifteen minutes to mine, if you want to move to the front seat."

"Don't you want me to confine my contamination to one spot of your car?" Angel said. Wicked sense of humor. Self-deprecating without taking either of them too seriously.

Arthur shot back without thinking, "Maybe I don't trust you to sit behind me without Gw- Officer McLeod to keep an eye on you. How well did they search you?"

"And yet you're bringing me into your home…" Angel goaded, but unclipped his belt and stood up out of the backseat into the street, slamming his door behind him.

Arthur watched him in the driver's side mirror, heft his bag and glance up street and down. He wondered if the boy was contemplating making a run for it – reached to the door handle without a clear idea if he'd chase him down, tackle him and wrestle him back to the car, cuff him and call it in… or what.

But Angel only pulled a garment from the top of his army rucksack and rounded the car to sling the pack into the foot-well before pulling an olive-drab jacket two sizes too big, over the navy sweatshirt. He stepped into the passenger seat, shut the door, and untucked the sweatshirt hood from the jacket collar, before buckling his seatbelt.

Then noticed Arthur staring.

"What?" he said.

"We've met before."

Ben Angus had stepped in for him, stood up for him, saved his job at least and maybe therefore his sanity and his life at one of his lowest points, after his mother's death. Had told him, his instincts as a detective, intelligence and knowing when to be suspicious, was too valuable to throw away on temper.

Instinct and suspicion were aroused. Arthur said, "You were on the bridge."

No dawning realization, no recollection of memory, because Angel was already aware of that meeting. Had been, maybe since Arthur opened the door of the privacy-room and walked in. Had the street kid been playing him all night? Had he been playing them all since the funeral?

Except… those texts predated Ben's death. And Leon's testimony hadn't been influenced.

"I didn't know you'd be there," Angel said without apology. "I was… saying goodbye. Because I couldn't go to the service or the cemetery with everyone else, y'know."

The boy held his gaze, grave and unflinching, and Arthur nodded, accepting and believing.

 **A/N: It's December 1, and I crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line! 50k words of my original, yay! Now I've got to keep the steam going and finish it…**


	4. Guide 2

**Part 2: Guide (cont.)**

 _(Now)_

 _We could talk about these awful naked-ass pajamas they've got you in. Really awful seventies prints and colors. You're probably lucky you're not up and walking around, people would point and laugh… and that open back might be a bit too breezy - weather's been chilly this week._

 _You wanna talk about the weather? People talk about the weather, right? The weather is important, too. More than people think._

 _You gotta balance the weather, when you live on the street. When it's too hot, you gotta find some relief in public places and air conditioning._

 _The best place is the mall. I've got this corner bench behind a shrub made of cotton. Damn teal-and-burgundy crap. You can watch better... richer… other people walk by. The ones my age are kind of fascinating – you know they buy clothes that look like mine? All faded and with holes already in – distressed, they call it. Distressing, I call it…_

 _C'mon, you can laugh. That was funny, right?…_

 _Yeah, and they've got all the new tech, so they don't actually have to spend time with each other. That's funny, isn't it? They come here together, to hang out, and then no one talks to each other or looks at each other._

 _But sometimes I hear them, talking about their lives – no one understands them, they say. Their parents, teachers, boyfriend or girlfriend. No one understands how hard it is to be them, and how is it possible to live until the weekend, or the summer, or when they're eighteen they'll graduate and have some real freedom._

 _Yeah, right. 'Cause we're all eighteen, on the street. And we're all perfectly free, aren't we._

 _The library is second-best, though. I prefer it – it's calm, and smells like old pages, ink and glue and leather. You can find a quiet corner and read about someone else's life and imagine. And again, and again, reading about stuff like hope and triumph and love. And family and home and safety._

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

(Then)

The drive back to his apartment began in awkward silence. Arthur tried to think of questions to ask – How'd you meet Angus? What's with the name Angel? – and realized he couldn't.

 _Female DB, in an alley behind the hospital, accompanied by young white male, half out of his head… no one really paid attention when he insisted it was murder._

 _ **Face time. Or we'll test his wings. No bells rngng 4 this 1.**_

Two minutes later, Angel said, "That wasn't the first time." From the tail of his eye, Arthur caught a swift and oddly shy glance. "On the bridge, it wasn't the first time we met."

Arthur stared into the darkness over the top of the steering wheel, negligently noting traffic signs and lights as he searched his memory. "Sorry," he said finally. "I meet a ton of people, this job."

"It's all right, it was a couple of years ago. You were with Angus, driving, because he never liked to... Waiting, at the east entrance of the park. It was snowing and you were impatient, you had the window rolled down and Angus said to me, you wanted to holler and tell him to hurry up, but you didn't quite dare."

Arthur felt his throat tighten. It sounded so like the old man, the kind of fond sarcasm that didn't tear a person down… And it was true that Ben never had cared to drive.

He could smell that crisp new-snow scent, the wafting vapor of the car's exhaust, mingling with the cloudy steam of Ben's coffee… and the breath of the beanpole homeless guy he was talking to. Olive-drab Army overcoat hanging from shambling stoop-shouldered frame, ragged and dirt-smudged black stocking cap pulled over ears and neck and eyebrows. Cheekbones and lips red from the cold.

"You have quite a memory," he managed.

"Well… not all of us are alcoholics or mentally ill," Angel said.

The tiny lobby of Arthur's apartment building was deserted and cold, leaves blown in the door and left unswept on the brick-tile floor. Angel was as sharp-eyed as a detective on a case himself, waiting for the elevator, glancing down the halls at the ground-floor apartments. Orienting himself to a new place, Arthur supposed, and maybe because someone like him could never really trust in another's care and supervision. Checking for exits, or something, in case anything changed. Disappointed and moved on too many times, maybe.

"Top floor, huh?" Angel said, adjusting the strap of his pack over his shoulder, leaning into one of the back corners of the elevator as it rattled and squeaked upward. "Penthouse."

" _Out_ house," Arthur retorted immediately. "Sorry. No, it's not that bad. Clean as I bother to keep it, anyway." Cheap and small and spare. But there was heat and air conditioning; he shouldn't complain, and especially not to this young man.

"You got family in town?" Angel said.

Not the sort of question they answered. As many people as they talked to, and as unsavory as they could be, best to keep the loved-ones cards close to the vest. But Arthur couldn't see where it mattered if he answered at least vaguely.

"My dad."

Angel hummed. "No mom?"

That one, Arthur didn't answer. So Angel set out, all unknowing, to prove Leon right.

"She left, huh? Long time ago, or only just? Was it because she couldn't stand your dad? Or because she couldn't stand you?"

Arthur's hackles rose, and his hands clenched involuntarily – and he remembered. A foster-kid type response. Sure that something wouldn't last, too good to be true, the only control possible was over _when_ it ended. Right away, before hopes lifted and attachments formed.

He faced Angel, as the doors dinged open, and _saw_ him.

A street kid. On his own, friendless and entirely without any external support. Having to trust a stranger, a cop, assuming the sort of privileged childhood and background he'd been denied, having connections and comforts…

Angel was testing him.

Maybe it was worth a punch in the mouth, for him, to gauge Arthur's temper. Here and now, when he could still make a credible getaway, before he crossed Arthur's threshold and accepted at least nominal hospitality and moved a little further into comfortable acquaintance or situational familiarity.

Arthur resisted the urge to grin a bit devilishly, and held the elevator door open, tailbone and palm. "My mother was killed in a car accident when I was sixteen," he said. "A head-on collision, and my best friend was at the wheel of the other car. Both of them died instantly."

The boy was shocked-guilty. Too gullible for a street kid, Arthur was in the middle of thinking, when the expression shifted to uncertain, and then disbelieving, and he had to change his mind. "You're kidding me."

"Come on," Arthur said only, and Angel followed him out of the elevator.

He wasn't done yet, though Arthur felt reasonably sure Angel's barbs weren't going to get beneath his skin, anymore, not like that one had. At the end of the hall, where Arthur unlocked the deadbolt of his door, the boy said, "This is really nice of you, letting me stay – but then, you know that, don't you."

Arthur pushed the door open and dead-panned, "Enter at your own risk."

Angel hesitated, and Arthur knew he was aware of all the truly terrible things that could happen, even to an adult male, even though he was a cop, trusting the wrong stranger. Arthur gave the kid that wicked grin, then, and was surprised when it served to make Angel relax, before he ducked into the dark apartment.

Arthur rubbed his hand down the wall for the light switch. All the places on this side of the building were designed in a long narrow row of rooms – kitchen, then living room, then bathroom, then bedroom. The one plus was that his was on the end, in a corner, so he had a great double window to the right, illuminating kitchen-dining – not at night, though – and windows on two walls in the bedroom.

"There's water in the fridge or food if you're hungry," he said. "Don't touch the booze or break anything."

"Roger," Angel said sardonically.

Not taking it personally, Arthur passed him in the narrow walkway past the kitchen's second-half peninsula, sink and shelves and a really narrow eating-bar.

"You'll have the couch here," he said. It was a fat two-person affair of cracked denim-colored faux leather, ugly as sin but unsurpassed for comfort. "I've got extra sheets and blankets and pillows in the hall closet here –" next to the stacking washer-dryer set – "but you'll want a shower first, right?"

"What are you trying to say?" Angel said, jokingly, following.

It was late and Arthur was tired. "I'm telling you that you stink like a wild boar."

He was again surprised, when Angel threw back his head and let an incredibly young-sounded laugh peal out. Blue eyes danced. "And how would you know what that smells like?"

"I have an imagination," Arthur informed him loftily, digging blind in a box in a corner on a shelf in the closet.

"Oh, really," Angel scoffed. "And what proof do you have of that?"

"Just told you." Arthur palmed one of his discoveries, set the other one back to rummage again. "Wild boar, remember?"

"If that counts." Angel still wasn't impressed.

Arthur snorted. "What about you, then? Have you got an imagination?"

"Nope." Angel shrugged. "I had that removed years ago. It was bad for my health."

Arthur made a sarcastic noise. "Along with your sense of humor, maybe?"

"No, that they left. I'd die without it."

Arthur emerged from the closet and looked at the kid, but he had his head turned, studying the rest of the apartment. He wondered just how much truth there might have been in that verbal joust.

"I've got some hotel contraband, if you want your own stuff," he said, leaning in the bathroom door to scatter the tiny bottles and packages across the sink-counter. "Soap, shampoo, whatever." He opened the sink-base cabinet and handed Angel a long slender package. "Because you _can't_ use mine."

"Gross," Angel agreed cheerfully, accepting the new toothbrush without thanks.

"I'm going to fumigate all your stuff while you're in there, loan you some of my things, all right? So don't lock the door, but let me know when the curtain's shut."

Something flashed in Angel's blue eyes. Wariness over releasing his belongings, fear of the vulnerability of the suggested position, maybe resentment at being _told_ to do what he _wanted_ to do, and being unable to protest.

"Look," Arthur said wearily. "It's damn late and I was already in bed –" he gestured and Angel followed the motion with his eyes, seeing the rumpled bed in the dim light of the bedroom – "when they called me in to get you, and now I'm even tireder, so if we have to fight about something, can it wait til tomorrow, at least?"

"Clothes first," Angel said. "I'll put my stuff outside the door."

"Fine." Arthur retrieved a pair of Adidas track pants and a long-sleeve t-shirt of a plain dark red, clean under-things, and shoved them at his unexpected houseguest. "Get a move on."

Angel disappeared into the bathroom and Arthur – feeling it would be weird to stand and wait – went to lock the door and get a bottle of water himself, to attach his phone to its charger in the bedroom and check the DVR that was part of his cable package. In the kitchen, he hesitated over the knife-block, then left it. Even nameless, the kid's prints hadn't turned up anything worse than shoplifting and trespassing and Angus had trusted him enough evidently to urge him to move in.

Though he hadn't. Hadn't even told the old man his real name. Hm.

A hand emerged and Angel's bundle dropped with a thud. The door shut – the lock snicked shut, but it didn't matter Arthur could pick it easily from the outside – and the water turned on.

Arthur started the washer with a full cup of detergent, dropping in Angel's clothes without doing more than patting pockets. Except for the heavier army jacket, which he searched pretty thoroughly in spite of its filthy state; he was unsurprised to find several places where the lining had been picked open and tucked or pinned back in place. Hiding places, for cash or drugs or other bits and pieces Angel didn't want to lose, to anyone willing to rob a homeless person – anyone coming more specifically for _him_ , considering the circumstances – or to bad-luck police searches. It was all empty now; Arthur assumed he'd found temporary hiding in the bathroom somewhere, tucked into the loaned clothes or beneath the rug or behind the waste basket or something.

He was curious about what was carried in the rucksack, but didn't figure it worth the risk of Angel catching him at it, to open the door and search the pack while the boy was only a shower curtain away. He needed Angel to trust him, too, for this to work, after all.

Arthur did, however, linger near the door when the water turned off. Street kid probably didn't take the time to dry thoroughly before dressing again – he himself would be wary at a stranger's house in a similar situation – and he wasn't surprised again to hear the creak of the under-sink cabinet doors as the boy did a bit of curious snooping of his own. But when the telltale squeak of the mirror fronting the inset medicine shelves passed through the doors, Arthur drew the line and shoved the skeleton key kept on the lintel-ledge of the door's outer trim into the knob's hole, and opened the door.

Angel, still shirtless, froze in the act of setting the little bottle of painkillers back on the shelf.

Arthur scanned the shelves – nothing else disturbed – noted the two white oblong pills on the sink-top. Single dose, and he was putting the rest back.

"Headache," Angel said only.

"Sure." Arthur didn't apologize for unlocking the door – a cop in his own house had certain rights and took certain liberties, after all. But as he began to turn away, he noticed a scar on the boy's elbow. Two inches long maybe, white and thick and turning to follow the curve of the joint.

And having observed that, he visually collected the rest in a keen once-over. Bruising, red and purple, up and down the spinal bones, and the left shoulder-blade where there were also scrapes. Another old scar, oblong and pointed at both ends – a deepish cut inadequately treated, that had stretched with premature activity – mid-back on the right side. Headed for the kidney but deflected on bone. A white patch of skin over the outer curve of the right shoulder where another massive scrape was still healing. Other older bruises, smaller scars, insignificant in themselves and nothing needing first aid, but adding up.

As Angel watched him in the mirror.

And Arthur said, intelligently and eloquently and sympathetically, "Oh."

"Ain't I pretty?" Angel said, grinning darkly. "Get a good look. Want to see here?" he asked, extending his bare arms to show the underside clear of track marks. It wasn't really definitive proof, and he knew it as well as Arthur; he was making a point, though. "Or would you like to see the inside of my eyelids or my lip or between my toes? Would you like to examine my –"

"I can tell when someone's on or off," Arthur said evenly. "You never could have drawn that portrait of Angus from memory, otherwise."

Gathering his painkillers and transferring them palm to mouth, Angel bent over to swallow them with water from the faucet. Then he reached for the loaned red t-shirt.

"You've been in a lot of fights," Arthur observed.

"I never start 'em," Angel defended with incongruous cheer, yanking the shirt over his wet head.

"You provoke them, though, don't you," Arthur went on more slowly, remembering what Leon and the desk sergeant had said. "Why is that?"

"Why don't you figure it out?" Angel returned impudently, snagging one of the shoulder-straps of his army ruck and facing Arthur, arms at his sides and unafraid. "You're smart, aren't you? A cop? An officer of the law? Or are you only a uniform 'cause you're too stupid to make detective? Disappointing – but you know what they say about blondes."

Arthur felt the surge of anger, the involuntary tightening of fingers into fists. The almost overwhelming urge to assert a primal sort of dominance and masculinity, to make his mocker wrong by forcing him to admit it.

The feeling rolled over him like a wave and ebbed away. Angel was still watching him expectantly; Arthur wondered if anything of his emotions had been discernible to the boy.

"Do your legs look the same as the rest of you?" he said neutrally, referring to injuries new and old, wondering if the first aid kid was necessary. Bandages and ointment.

Angel's smile quirked toward something more genuinely friendly, but he said wickedly, "You gotta pay me first if you want to see my legs."

Arthur ignored the implication, and tried to keep his tone mild as he observed, "One of these days someone might do more than just beat the snot out of you."

Angel shrugged. And as soon as Arthur left the bathroom doorway to open the hall closet, the thrum of the wash machine getting louder, the boy moved into the open living area. "Wouldn't matter much to anyone."

It was a terrible thing to say, and all the more so for probably being true.

"Here," Arthur said, thrusting an armful of sheets and a heavy fuzzy blanket at his houseguest. Angel dropped the rucksack beside the couch to take it from him, and he retrieved an extra pillow from the closet to spin onto the couch, silently blessing the hypoallergenic cover already on it. "Like I said, water in the fridge or food if you're hungry –" Did he have anything to offer for breakfast? oh, well, they could have toast and peanut butter and oranges, he had a new sack-full in one of the bottom bins of the fridge. "I'm beat, so I'm turning in. Just don't…" he watched Angel hug the bedding with an unreadable expression, absently stroking the blanket – "burn the place down, or anything," he finished lamely.

"Yeah."

Returning to his dim bedroom, he left the door open but changed to his flannel pants behind it, left his shirt on to crawl between sheets again. For a few moments he purposefully listened to Angel arranging the couch for a bed. He heard the fridge door shut, and a moment later the main light flicked off, leaving the bathroom light on between them, which was fine with Arthur.

He didn't expect to sleep, really, too alert to relax, but it was through a vague fog that he heard another noise later, and realized it for the door of the dryer when the machine kicked on.

So Angel wasn't sleeping that well, either. Or maybe he was just a night person…

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

 _(Now)_

 _Home… never really thought much about that, before. You've got a nice place, but… I dunno. I guess I never thought of myself as someone who could have a home, y'know?_

 _What I remember from being a kid is… bare walls and stained carpets. Smells like cold soy sauce and cooled grease. The kind of stuff my mom could afford, working this job and that job, and none of them for very long. She was always sick._

 _Home should be… clean. And fresh, and colorful. Restful and warm and… welcoming. Yeah. But… I remember my mom's smile, that made me feel like I belonged there, no matter where we were. That I belonged with her. Even though she was all pale, lips and face and pillow. Even though that smile was weak and thin, skin and bones near the end._

 _So I guess, home is the smile of someone who loves you. Not just the place you eat or sleep, the roof that keeps off the rain. Box or bridge._

 _Home is… safety. You probably don't think much of that, you're pretty strong and fit. Having a job and money makes you feel pretty secure, I bet. Muscles and a badge, huh?_

 _I suppose something like safety is easier to define by the absence. A hint, way down in your heart, or deeper in your belly. You ever feel that? Nothing definite, just… being sure that… you're not safe._

 _It's like… a question left unanswered too long. When you still need to depend on someone, but no one is there._

 _Like a part of your heart was meant to grow, slow and sheltered – but instead has to make a shield to protect itself. A street kid has to pretend to be tough until sometimes that's all that's left, and if you're not safe for too long, I think it makes it difficult or maybe impossible to recognize or make or keep a home…_

 _Wow, I'm kinda off topic, huh. You should have said…_

 _I was telling you about the library, wasn't I._

 _It doesn't have security like the mall does, but you get an old lady librarian stammering and embarrassed asking you to leave, if you ask me that's a lot worse. The library doesn't have big bathrooms either like the mall has, at the mall you get the big handicapped stalls where you can pretty much strip and wash if you carry the hand soap like a little pearly pond in your hand without spilling too much._

 _That was too personal, maybe. Sorry… What we were talking about?_

 _Oh, right, the weather._

 _Because if it's too cold, then I've got to go back to the mattress in the basement of the house. Or the couch in the common area if I fall asleep before I remember to move. That's about the only place I might call home, but it's the place I feel the least safe, or comfortable. There's too many people, all the time. They get greedy, sometimes, you can't trust them, you never know what some of 'em might do. And I don't mean just the girls._

 _But I don't go back there much, anymore._

 _And when the weather's fine, when the temperature is okay – because rain or shine or cloudy or hail doesn't matter – I'm out. Where doesn't matter, much. There are places all across this city that are private and near perfect for feeling some of that safety of sunshine and cool breeze and fresh air, and seeing the stars. Places of shelter, and if not, a little wet never hurts anything but strangers' sensibilities._

 _And that is something we get immune to, real early on._

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

(Then)

But when Arthur opened his eyes again, the bedroom blinds were glowing with full sun, and the low growl in his ear was his clock-radio alarm on hard rock, the volume turned low so it was a background white noise, and hadn't woken him, really. He groaned and rolled over, slapping the snooze button instead of the more deliberate _Off_. Then he lay still, staring at the ceiling, working through what felt wrong to him.

He was late to work – no matter, Gwen would cover for him; he planned to be out today anyway with Angel, which was why he was sleeping with a shirt on, he never did that it was uncomfortable, but.

The apartment was silent.

Either Angel was sleeping in, too, or…

Arthur bolted upright, staring out the open door. The bathroom was dark, the light off. Wash machine and dryer both silent. He scooted to the edge of the bed – glancing instinctively to his phone, still in place on the dresser next to his car keys – then padded out barefoot. At a glance it was obvious, the rest of the apartment was deserted.

Door unlocked… hallway deserted. He didn't venture further, wearing only the clothes he'd slept in, only turned wearily back to his apartment.

Bedding neatly folded on the couch, one stack at each end. Used and unused, Arthur guessed. The rucksack was gone – he turned to check the laundry – empty and empty. His shirt and jeans and socks on loan were nowhere that he could see.

"He took my _clothes_?" Arthur said aloud. He ducked into the bathroom and flicked the light on – only his toothbrush and the pump of hand-soap. "He took my _toothpaste_."

That sparked a thought, and he yanked the mirror open, scanning shelves, checking bottles – everything there. Well, that was a relief. He turned to stride to the kitchen, checking again the knives and booze – all in place.

"Damn," he said in bewilderment. Well, now he'd have to call Gwen – probably text Gwaine – and…

On the edge of the narrow eating-bar nearest the wall, he saw a sheet of notebook paper, tattered-edged and folded once. No, more than one sheet. He picked it up and went to open the main-room blinds.

 _Dear Officer_ , he read. _Sorry for this. Just got to thinking about what they did to Angus, and I thought, they might of killed him instead of me to keep him from looking at them for my murder. Don't know if they'd try it again, but_

 _you're probably safer if I'm not around. I do know how to take care of myself, don't worry (not that you would) and I can lay low._

 _I know we kind of had a deal. So I drew you two pictures of the guys I saw there, though they had a couple others with them I didn't recognize. These ones are Jeff (Jefe, everyone calls him, Spanish for boss I guess or some crap), and the fat man. I call him Fagin. Can't give you better than that on their names, but I wrote plenty about where they go and what they do. I think Angus probably had more on them if he kept track of what I told him over the years, but its still not enough for the courts on only my say-so._

 _I like your place. The couch was comfy, and everything smelled nice_.

Arthur figured that for as close to thanks as the street kid ever got.

 _Oh, ps. I took the oranges, and soap from under your bathroom cabinet._

He rolled his eyes, but could not help grinning. Soap and oranges, and he'd left the more valuable electronics – car! – alcohol and meds behind. Some kind of sense of honor; he could almost like Angel for it.

Arthur slouched his weight on one of the bar stools, his knee knocking the panel of the cabinets beneath, and reached for his phone to send Gwaine an abbreviated but still longish text to fill him in on last night, and this morning. He grimaced at the thought of his ex-partner's colorful language on learning the kicker.

 _You lost him? He played you?_

He keyed for Gwen's number and pushed the Call button.

"You said you were going to call in sick but you didn't call," she said without preamble. "You owe me for covering your ass, Penn."

"Thanks, Gwennie," he said, hearing someone else in the background – a temporary partner – say, _Tell Penn he's a lazy bum_.

"How's Angel?" she said instead.

"Clean and full of vitamin C," he said sarcastically, "wherever he is, the little punk."

"What do you mean?"

So he told her. And unlike his imaginary-Gwaine, she didn't say a thing. She didn't have to, he reflected, her disapproving silence was so much more effective.

"I've got the locations on the map Leon showed us," he said into the silence. "And the spot where he was picked up last night. He left me some info on the guys he claims murdered Angus and some better-than-average facial sketches. He said Angus was keeping tabs on them, too, til he had enough to put them away for good, probably."

"You coming in today, then?" she asked.

"If I can't find him today, I'll work a shift tonight and give you this stuff – at least you can sift through Angus' files and so on. If you're up for that."

She hummed thoughtfully. "If he kept on it even after he retired, maybe there's some stuff at his house, still."

"I can swing by there and look."

"Hey, Penn," she added, after a brief pause when neither of them took their leave. "You're all right, aren't you? Did he take anything?"

Arthur snorted. "My clean clothes he was wearing. Oranges and soap and toothpaste."

She laughed, and it almost made him glad he'd been robbed. "I'll see you," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

 _I am not a child now, I can take care of myself.  
I mustn't let them down now, mustn't let them see me cry.  
I'm fine… I'm fine.  
I'm too tired to listen, I'm too old to believe_

 _All these childish stories, there is no such thing as faith_

 _and trust… and pixie dust.  
I try, but it's so hard to believe.  
I try, but I can't see what you see.  
I try… I try… I try_

 _My whole world is changing, I don't know where to turn_  
 _I can't leave you waiting, but I can't stay and watch the city burn_  
 _Watch it burn…_

 _'Cause I try, but it's so hard to believe._  
 _I try, but I can't see what you see._  
 _I try… I try.._  
 _I try and try to understand the distance in between_  
 _The love I feel, the things I fear and every single dream…_

 _..._

 _I can finally see it, now I have to believe_  
 _All those precious stories_  
 _All the world is made of faith and trust and pixie dust_

 _So I'll try, 'cause I finally believe_  
 _I'll try, 'cause I can see what you see_  
 _I'll try… I'll try… I will try… I'll try_  
 _To fly…_

I'll Try ~ Jonatha Brooks


	5. Guardian 1

Warning: Mention of a past sexual act that could be construed as non-consenting (last section, if you want to skip it). Do I also have to warn for mention of past child abuse?... hm, well anyway, you've been warned.

 **Part 3: Guardian**

 _I need a sign, to let me know you're here  
All of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere  
I need to know, that things are gonna look up  
'Cause I feel us drowning in a sea spilled from a cup_

 _When there is no place safe and no safe place to put my head  
When you can feel the world shake from the words that are said_

 _And I'm, calling all Angels  
And I'm, calling all you Angels_

 _And I won't give up, if you don't give up  
I won't give up, if you don't give up  
I won't give up, if you don't give up  
I won't give up, if you don't give up_

 _I need a sign to let me know you're here  
'Cause my TV set just keeps it all from being clear  
I want a reason for the way things have to be  
I need a hand to help build up some kind of hope inside of me_

 _And I'm, calling all Angels  
And I'm, calling all you Angels_

"Calling All Angels" ~ Train

* * *

For two weeks, Arthur failed to find Angel.

The first week, he didn't really try, figuring the street kid would anticipate that, and be hiding. He went to work, he did his job. On the way home, he drove by a few of the spots Leon had pointed out, random times and in random order, and never saw him. He didn't think they were desperate enough to start canvassing among the homeless or the working-girls, and more than likely scare him further off.

He called the first number that the boy had ever texted a message to Angus from, and got only, _Johns Motors can I help you_.

The second week he found himself peering up into the overpasses of highway bridges, and hyper-aware of the weather. When it rained he scouted the cheapest restaurants in the precincts, the arcade at the movie theater, and local dollar- and charity-stores. He walked through the mall and tried the museum of engineering and the library; security at the first two shrugged and said _maybe_ , to Arthur's description of the street kid. The library of course didn't have a man in private uniform, but the librarians knew who Arthur meant, and fussed with embarrassment - equally about having the homeless boy present on premises, and the fact that they hadn't seen him around for two weeks.

On the job, when their attention wasn't occupied by immediate issues and responsibilities, he and Gwen discussed little else. With those names – even as aliases – and the sketches, the amount of material available in Ben's collection could be narrowed down, sifted through and sorted and set to a timeline, other connections established.

It was all up on his living room wall, now, though Gwen still had one of the two boxes he'd retrieved from Ben's basement.

Gladys hadn't asked why, when she'd opened the door of Ben's house for Arthur, and he hadn't told her of their unofficial investigation. She seemed personally to have decided her brother's death the result of some bizarre accident. "I still can't think, why he would do that. Go to the bridge, that time of night, without letting anyone know… No, sorry, I don't recall he ever mentioned the name Angel."

At her forlorn words, Arthur had wished Gwen was there, to give kind words and a kinder hug to the middle-aged women.

There had been no sign of the busy-body neighbors.

Then one day Gwen rested herself sideways on his couch, one knee up, her elbow propped on the back of the couch and her temple resting on her fist. "That's the last of it, then," she said. "There's nothing left at Gwaine's."

Busy tacking bits of their web of information to the wall, Arthur only murmured acknowledgement.

Then she said, "Gwaine wanted to know, was I sure Angel hadn't just royally pissed you off. He said maybe you'd given him a bullet between the eyes and a burial in the backyard."

"I don't have a backyard," Arthur said, feeling both angry and amused at once.

"No, of course not, but… what did happen?"

He backed away from the wall and turned, facing her but looking toward the window. "Nothing like that. I mean, he _tried_ , but…"

"What did he say?" she said curiously, and when he looked at her, a bit of embarrassed confusion crossed her face and caused her to sit up straighter. "I'm sorry, if you don't want to –"

"I asked him about the fighting," Arthur said, very deliberately not mentioning his mother. "He tried to get under my skin with a dig about being too stupid to make detective."

Her dark eyes widened. "Do you think he _knew_?"

Arthur made a face. "No. If he makes it a habit, a hobby, pissing people off, then he's probably gotten good at guessing which buttons to push."

"Poor kid," she said sympathetically.

He gave her a look both incredulous and sardonic. "Who does that? And why? I looked at his face, in his eyes – Gwennie, he _expected_ me to punch him." _He almost_ wanted _me to punch him._

"Because," she said, slowly and deliberately - watching him for offense, for his realization of what she'd already figured out - "every time someone lashes out at him, it makes him _right_ not to trust anyone. It's probably easier, it's probably safer, for him. On the inside, I mean, where hurt takes longer to heal."

"So he'd rather make someone injure him than care about him?" Arthur said in sarcastic disbelief.

"Think about it. He's only ever had hurt, it's what he understands. And… it takes a certain amount of trust, opening yourself up to being loved and loving back. It's riskier than simply expecting and accepting the hurt." She shrugged, dropping her eyes self-consciously, and he didn't argue. Had she been talking of only Angel, he didn't know, and didn't dare ask.

And with silent agreement, they turned back to the wall.

Gwaine stopped by for a beer at eight-thirty on a Thursday morning – those crazy special task-force hours – and they both stared at Arthur's living room wall as well.

"These the two bastards that did it," Gwaine said, indicating the drawings Angel had left with Arthur, front and center of the collage.

"Yep."

Gwaine grunted. "That Angel sure is talented with a pencil. Love to see what he could do with some training and real materials… Looks like the information he gave Angus mostly resulted in peripheral arrests though, huh."

"Jeff and the fat man keep pretty bad company," Arthur said. "A pimp and his hustler. Small potatoes, you'd think. My guess is Angel knows how to keep his ears open and his mouth shut and overheard just the right things at just the right time. This guy here –" he pointed to another photo from Ben's files – "drug bust. They got the cook-house and half a dozen cutters on a raid. This one went state-pen on a multiple-homicide charge, a rival gang hit he orchestrated. This one ran a chop shop, couple of assault charges to go with the grand-theft-auto. This one is serving life for attempted murder of a police officer in the Ninth precinct – blunt force trauma with an aluminum bat left the uniform with permanent brain damage. Our boy Angel tipped off the location of the murder weapon as well as time and place to arrest the perp."

"I recognize this dude," Gwaine said suddenly, pointing with the rim of his bottle to a picture on the right. "Ivan, right? Slippery punk. The DEA likes him for a laundry list of felonies, but he's always got an airtight alibi – even to the point of being in police custody for a misdemeanor during the commission of the crime in question."

"That's why we can't get anything heavier on these two," Arthur agreed. "They've got a house full of girls to alibi them. And nothing more definite linking them to Ben or the bridge that night, than Angel's say-so. Nothing in the ME's report, even."

"If we could get some surveillance in that house…" Gwaine mused.

Arthur snorted, shifting his gaze from the web of photos, yellow sticky-notes, and pinned yarn, to the conglomerate of shots of a three-story square brick building, home address of both men and a dozen come-and-go prostitutes. Not quite an apartment building, nor yet a single-family home, but the drugs were neither made nor sold on-site, and other customers were entertained elsewhere.

"McLeod said she'd be willing to try an undercover bit, but… that kind of cover takes time to set up, someone on the inside to buy it and invite her in."

"And – you vetoed that idea right away," Gwaine guessed, giving him a sideways glance.

"It's too risky to do without full support, and permission," Arthur said evenly, not meeting his eyes. "And we're not going to get that without more to go on."

"Too bad we can't wire Angel and send him in," Gwaine said. He stepped closer to flip a sticky note off a newspaper clipping, then trace a strand of red yarn downwards from Ivan's photo, making a thoughtful noise. "I suppose it's too much of a long shot, trying to get my DEA crew to support someone infiltrating a fringe pair like this so close to deal-time, on the off chance they might get something solid on Ivan… Have you talked to your father at all?"

Arthur drank the last of his beer, three swallows, one after another, and took his bottle to the kitchen without answering. Set it in the stainless-steel sink, then leaned on hands spread on the counter.

"It might be worth at least _asking_ …" Gwaine added apologetically.

"I did," Arthur said shortly.

The conversation – as he'd anticipated, as he'd told Gwen when she'd suggested it, though without the fuller understanding of the situation that Gwaine had – had not gone well.

He should have hung up when the secretary put him on hold. Or, after the first five minutes of musak. Or the first ten. He'd have gone in person, but it had always been hard to know if his father would be in his own office, in a meeting somewhere else, or in court. Calling was preferable to wasting hours waiting, and giving up without a single word exchanged.

"Arthur," his father had said, upon finally picking up his call. Always that tone of impatience bordering on disgust.

Nothing Arthur did had ever been quite good enough, as long as he could remember. Halfway through college – pre-law as purchased by Penn Sr. – Arthur had quit. His whole life, it sometimes felt like, left it all behind to make his own decisions and hold his own job and pay his own bills and make a difference in the world his own way. All their lives his mother had bridged the gap, but now… he hadn't seen or spoken to his father since her funeral eighteen months ago. And his demotion.

"Arthur. I assume you need something, what is it."

He'd bitten his tongue and instead of twenty more personal things that might have come out – defiant and accusatory and call-ending – he'd managed to begin more evenly. "I have a question on a case."

Now Gwaine turned to face Arthur, shoving his hair back in a surprised gesture. "And?"

"He said, he wouldn't go to a judge for a warrant or a wire-tap request or anything else, with the hearsay stuff we've got now," Arthur said. "But."

Gwaine, who'd begun to swing away in eloquent disappointment, alerted expectantly to the qualifier.

"If we have this witness and if we can get a credible name and address attached to him that a defense attorney would accept, and if he can sit a coherent and productive deposition," Arthur said. "My father said he'd see what he can do."

Gwaine absorbed and considered. "I never met the kid – you think Angel is capable of all that?"

"First," Arthur said grimly, "I have to find him."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

 _(Now)_

 _C'mon, Arthur, you're starting to make us worry, now. Even the staff. And your dad is mad… One more day, I'm telling you, and you're going to make Gwen cry. I told her your last words were for her, but… you never finished what you wanted to say, so…_

 _Can you even hear me?_

 _How about I tell you how I met Angus? I know you were curious about that…_

 _But to tell you that, I have to tell you about Rosie…_

 _Just… give me a minute. I don't really do this._

 _If I had to guess, I'd say you don't really do this either. Talking, I mean, about personal stuff. But you know what they say – desperate times. And all that._

 _But this is only once, you hear? Are you paying attention?_

 _So… okay. Here goes._

 _I met her in the same alley, at the same dumpster where Jeff found me, actually. Is that funny or sad, I'm not sure._

 _I wonder if I looked like that. Face all smeary with tears and other stuff, hair clumpy and snarled. Scared to death and ready to fight at the same time, like a wild cat. Half in and half out of the dumpster, and maybe the lid was making a bruise on her shoulder like it had on mine._

 _My feelings all confused. I guess I can tell you because I don't know if you can even hear me. I think you'd understand, though, I think you feel the same sometimes when you look at Gwen. I never felt any of that stuff before, not for any of the others… I wanted to take her to the mall, show her the bathrooms where she could wash… But y'know, hand soap is no good for hair, and girls like the shampoo that makes their hair all soft and shiny, smell good like strawberry and coconut. Cucumber melon is popular at the house._

 _I didn't think until later, maybe I looked like Jeff, to her._

 _But I said, S'cuse me, miss. I didn't say, Hey, kid._

 _I said, I'm sorry, and don't be scared. I won't hurt you. Do you have somewhere to go, because you could stay at my place… I wouldn't – I would never, y'know – I promise. I mean, it would be free. It would be safe._

 _I promised her that. I should have known better, that day. Nothing's free and no one's safe. And promises can't always be kept, even if someone really wants to._

 _Like when my mom said, It'll be okay, I'll be better soon…_

 _Anyway, I could tell she didn't believe me. She jumped down from the dumpster like she was ready to run. I probably should have let her, she was ready to run, but she stared back at me._

 _And I stared at her. And felt all that… stuff._

 _And then she came over to me._

 _She looked me all over, like she could tell if she could trust me by my skin or my hair, all uncombed and uncut like it always is. As if she could smell it on my clothes, from dumpster-diving expeditions and snatched from the drop-off behind that charity shop over on… never mind._

 _But she looked me right in the eyes, and I looked in hers. Brown like coffee without cream, and I thought, there's a sparkle locked away somewhere in there, if I only knew how to find the key._

 _Only I was lost myself._

 _It's all right, she said to me and shrugged her shoulder, which was really skinny. I have done before. I mean, we all have, right?_

 _That's something else that people assume. That us street folk will sell any part of our body for just about anything. Drugs, booze, five bucks._

 _She said, If you want me to… pay. It's all good. She kind of shrugged back at the alley and said, Your place or mine. And, what's your name, john._

 _I wasn't one of those. I wasn't one of either of those, ever. But I didn't tell her that, because telling means nothing. She'd have to see for herself, sooner or later. So I said, Just call me Angel. Like the song._

 _I remember wondering if she liked to read._

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

(Then)

Arthur stared at his wall, listening to the silence in his apartment. Ever since the first photo had been tacked in place, he hadn't been able to concentrate – or simply lose all concentration – on the television the couch faced. So he'd turned it to face the wall.

Two things, he kept coming back to, in his mental search for their witness.

One, the brick whorehouse run by Jeff and the fat man, whom Angel called Fagin because evidently he'd read _Oliver Twist_ – and he didn't go to the library just to stay warm, or cool, and dry – and why not. That story would appeal to someone like Angel. The brick house, and the fight that had started in lock-up over the mention of a mutual acquaintance who was a prostitute. And maybe the dead girl Leon had mentioned, when Ben first met Angel.

That, and the last phone number. Johns Motors. Two blocks from the park where Angel had spoken to Ben one snowy afternoon while Arthur waited in the driver's seat. Johns Motors… _John Doe Fifty-One_ , Angel had said, and something had sparked in his memory. John Deere.

The hat the boy had worn on the bridge. _Johns Motors, Runs Like A Deere_.

He reached out and picked up his phone from the arm of the couch.

"Johns Motors, can I help you?"

"Yes, I was wondering if you or anyone on staff is acquainted with a young man who goes by the name Angel? He's tall and thin and has dark-"

"Listen, if he's not an employee – and he's not - I can't tell you anything anyway, we can't talk about customers to strangers."

"No, not an employee or customer," Arthur corrected; _I'm a police officer_ was a card he'd wait to play, as it was a game-changer, always. "Though he might spend some time around the shop? on the street?"

"Sorry, can't help you – the other line is ringing, so if you don't have any actual business…?"

The phone went dead.

Arthur gripped it, checked his watch. He had a shift in half an hour; he couldn't do anything like a 24-7 surveillance on Johns Motors on the off chance it might have been one of those certain places with a certain person willing to give Angel certain things.

Laying low was all well and good, habits could be changed – but what when those habits were almost literally a lifeline? For someone like Angel, maybe too proud or too skittish to beg outright, he had to depend on the tried and true. But if there was one employee doing off-the-books favors for a homeless kid, it would be next to impossible to figure out who, or persuade him to admit it, much less give information to a cop that would lead to the boy being found.

He had the idea the hardest thing about being homeless – other than the constant uncertainty and danger – was learning initially how to survive. Where to go for basic necessities, who would have compassion without compunction, and share freely. Where to avoid. How to find the right person in the right place at the right time, and then having the courage to make the suggestion… Sooner or late Angel would almost have to revisit the familiar.

So… who else might know Angel's habits? Maybe nearly as well as he knew them himself – or as well as he knew the movements of those two men. _Lay low_ , Angel had said. But if it was only a matter of time til those men and _their_ resources caught up with him?

Arthur keyed in the number for the front desk of the Nineteenth precinct.

"This is Officer Arthur Penn," he said in response to the greeting, and added his shield number for confirmation. "I want to inquire if there have been any females arrested for solicitation or drug possession currently in custody, who've given the following address as a permanent residence."

The answer came back. Yes, actually, they did, but she was due to be released, the case wasn't going to court as they were a bit swamped at the moment, and –

"Can you do me an enormous favor and delay her paperwork for a couple of hours?" he said. "It may be important to another case that I speak to her right away."

Pause. Grumble. Yes, all right, but one hour only, and the favor will be called in, Officer Penn.

"Thank you so much," he said.

Fifty minutes later, he waited in the squad car while Gwen approached the woman making her way down the stairs outside the east entrance of the blocky Nineteenth building.

Technically they were supposed to remain in their own precinct while on duty, close proximity in case of a call. But this shouldn't take long, and they weren't far and Wednesday midmornings were usually slow, incident-wise.

The woman had short white-blonde hair with dark roots showing, spiky where it wasn't pinned close to her head. Cherry-red stilettos and lipstick, black leather shorts over fishnet stockings even in the fall chill. A jacket-shirt combination in cheap shiny-gold. Enormous white plastic handbag clutched close to her ribs.

She stopped dead when Gwen addressed her, looked over the trim blue uniform, and clearly refused Gwen's request. Shouldered past; Gwen trotted a moment to catch her up, still talking. Arthur put his hand on the door handle, ready to lend his more threatening presence if need be, but the woman stopped again.

This time she listened, though with an expression of wary uncertainty. Then glanced all around as if to see who might be watching.

Gwen gestured, and both of them looked in his direction. The woman hesitated a moment more, then hugged crossed arms over her cleavage and followed Gwen's persuasive coaxing, cautiously back to the squad car. Gwen opened both passenger doors at once, inviting the woman to ride in the back.

"Candy, this is Officer Penn," she said. "Like I said, we're friends of Angel's, and we only want to find him to talk to him."

"D'you know why you can't find him?" Candy said, bending to see Arthur in the driver's seat through the car and giving him a view clear to her navel, if he'd cared to look.

"He's trying not to be found," Arthur said, pleasantly enough. He had no idea how much she might know about – or approve of - Angel's arrangement with Ben, or the situation between him and her bosses.

"D'you know who he's hiding from?" she said, more narrowly.

Arthur took a chance. "Fagin, for one."

Her lips spread widely in a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Did you hit him, yet?"

It occurred to Arthur – briefly and unconnectedly – to wonder if Ben had ever reacted so, or if Angel had never tried that with the old man.

"Not yet," he said. "Though not for lack of provocation."

"What did he insult you with?" Candy asked, tossing her bag to the seat and thrusting fishnet-clad legs in, before twisting to land on the bench seat. Gwen, who'd waited for her decision, helped close the door with a hand on the outside, before doing the same in the shotgun seat.

"My intelligence," Arthur said, feeling like he could make light of it, now. "And my mother."

Gwen shot him a look, quick and inconspicuous to their guest in the back.

Candy grunted. "She said you'd drive me halfway home, your partner."

"Yes, ma'am." He reversed from the space they'd taken in the precinct's parking lot, and turned out into the street.

" _Yes, ma'am_ ," she mocked, though in a self-deprecating way. "Why do you want to find Angel?"

"We believe he may be in trouble, in danger," Arthur said. "We want to make sure –"

She laughed right out loud, raucously and with her head tipped back. "Every hour of every day, love, in this life. That's also why he's called Angel, did he tell you that? He figures he should have been dead a long time ago. Singin' with the other angels."

A cold shiver crawled its way up his spine. "Fine," he said, gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles were white. Gwen was quiet in the passenger seat, not intimidated but taking the role of an observer, as he had when she'd drawn Angel out in conversation. "Do you know where he is?"

"I can make a good guess where he might be, yeah."

He met her eyes in the rearview, as he had Angel, and thought, she's forty if she's a day. He realized, "You haven't given him away to them, then."

" 'Course not. I prefer my angels down to earth," she said mockingly. "Not sitting a cloud and picking a harp."

Arthur stepped on the brake and slid to a smooth stop in a fire lane in front of a row of apartments – out of traffic and parked illegally, but temporarily. "We're trying to take the two of them down for good. Jeff and Fagin, as Angel calls them. But we need him as a witness."

"But a street kid –" she started.

He shook his head. "There are ways around that. Temporary address. You know he cleans up nice, he's smart and he hasn't got addictions or mental disability to get in the way of giving testimony on the witness stand. The jury will not see, homeless equals unreliable."

She hugged one arm around her, raised her other hand to pinch her lip and turned her head to look blindly out the window. "I've stayed out of it," she said. "I don't want anyone else getting hurt."

"Anyone else?" Gwen prompted gently, and Candy looked at her.

"I've seen what happens when anyone tries to stand against them," she said, and Arthur glimpsed that hurt that had been absent from Angel. Years of selling bits and pieces – heart, soul, and body. "And Angel… he was such a sweet kid. Still is. He's a survivor, you know? I would hate… I would really hate if they got him, after all."

"They won't," Arthur said. He knew better than to promise, but it was implicit in the determination of his words. "We'll get them, first."

"You don't know that," Candy said, still resisting. "First time I met Angel – gorgeous, sweet kid, even if he was skinny and hungry and dirty and lost and alone. You could see his heart there in his blue eyes, that's something you never see in this life. The fat man – Fagin, he calls him, outta some book or other he read – wanted him earning his keep. A whole different category of client, if you follow."

She snorted, flicking her fingers – long fake nails the color of her lips and shorts and heels, candy-apple red. Neither Arthur nor Gwen interrupted.

"He went all the way to the motel room, not a word, you know? I was scared _for_ him, like maybe he didn't really understand. Worried what I was gonna find, after. His first time, you know. Anyway, the john comes storming out, after not-long-enough, pissed and embarrassed and frustrated 'cause Angel won't let him touch him, after all. We go back to the house, Angel still perfectly calm and quiet. And oh boy. Jefe was… furious. Nearly killed him, that day, I wasn't sure for a while if he was going to wake up again. And a couple times after, too. Just for being defiant, for saying no."

Candy shifted, tapped her nails, shook her head uneasily at the memory. Arthur thought of the scars, and believed she wasn't exaggerating.

"Still, he hung around. Our house was as much a home as he ever had. Hard worker, and always with a smile."

"If he didn't… I mean, if he wasn't…" Gwen hesitated, glancing at Arthur. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be offensive, I'm just wondering – what was the nature of Angel's association with these guys, then?"

"Mm. Errand boy. Chores around the house, running messages, other deliveries. Lot of times, he collected the house cut for the fat man. Saved his legs on the stairs, he said, but we all felt it went smoother. You didn't feel bad forking over to Angel – you did feel bad trying to hold out, knowing he was going to take the brunt of it if Jefe got mad, and he wouldn't even hold it against you. But he hasn't been around much the last two years."

Two years, Arthur thought, and didn't that correspond to…

"So what happened?" Gwen asked. "We heard there was a girl involved?"

"Rosie. And she is the other reason you better think damn long and hard before pulling Angel into this. You'll set him up a target, and heaven knows who they'll hit if they miss him."

Arthur bit his tongue on a protest – rather childish, maybe – that _Angel_ had pulled _them_ into it.

"Cute little girl. Runaway, of course. She told me once, because of her stepfather. One of those creeps who had his hands all over her since grade school, and her mother the sort of slut to get jealous rather than protective. She figured if she had to put up with that kind of crap her whole life, she might as well be free to choose who, and get paid for it."

"What happened?" Gwen said again, softly and genuinely sympathetic.

"He fell for her, of course. Angel, I mean. They were both so young… He was trying to talk her into leaving the life. Make other plans." Candy gave them a sorrowfully cynical sort of smirk. "Such children, they were. Of course she wasn't going to be allowed to leave. They hooked her, and it was all downhill from there."

"Hooked," Arthur said, and Candy unfolded to tap her first two fingers against the inside of her elbow significantly.

"She died, didn't she," Gwen said. "That's the girl – Arthur, when Angus and Leon met him. He said she was murdered?" She looked back at Candy, who reached for the door.

"I didn't say that," she snapped, fear-hardened once more. "Girl OD'd and no one saw a thing. I ain't giving testimony or evidence or nothin' on the record –"

"We're not asking you to," Arthur said quietly. "Just – to help us find Angel. Because sooner or later they'll find him."

"They might leave him alone if you'd drop the whole thing," she retorted.

"Then nothing changes," he said, reasonably. "Jeff and Fagin keep on doing what they're doing… maybe next time it's a friend of his, or maybe it's Angel himself. You want to keep him around? and not riding clouds in a white robe?"

She glared at him, and wrestled with the instincts that resisted admitting care or concern for anyone, trusting anyone and maybe _especially_ the police.

"He can take care of himself, I'm sure," Gwen said softly. "But maybe we can do a better job, this time? And then, he'll be free. You'll all be free…"

"So long as you keep me out of it," she said, scrunching her hips to the side of the seat, preparing to yank the door handle and bolt, her other elbow keeping her bag close to her side. "Today's… what, Wednesday? Wednesday nights he used to be at a car shop near the park. Came back smelling like gasoline – I noticed and asked once, he said he did some cleaning and shared a pizza with the shop foreman. There weren't many weeks that he missed. He used to wear one of those ball caps they give employees or customers, for advertisement, y'know."

Arthur met Gwen's eyes – her eyebrows lifted and she smiled, probably recognizing some of the same details he did, from what Angel had told them.

"I never met you, understand?" Candy said, guilty and uncertain and a bit conflicted, now.

"Thank you," he and Gwen both said, as the woman let herself out.

"Just leave me out of it," she mumbled, slamming the door. She started walking the way the car faced, then changed her mind mid-step to turn and stride quickly in a hip-swaying way the other direction.

"So," Gwen said. "What's closing time for Johns Motors?"

He didn't answer. "I'll go by there after our shift." Checking traffic, he pulled out of the fire lane, driving slowly and watching Candy shrink in the rearview til he couldn't see her anymore.

"Do you want me to –"

"No," he said, drawing the word out, thinking about what Candy had said. "I think you could talk him into it, but he might take off again if he saw an opportunity. If it's me by myself and I can get him to commit, I think he'll be more likely to stick to it. And then we wouldn't have to watch him."

Gwen looked away out the front window, unoffended and considering. "Yeah, you're probably right," she said. "But you'll let me know if you need anything at all? And definitely let me know if you find him and he agrees to take the stand."

"Will do," he said, and was interrupted by the radio dispatcher calling in a request for them to report. "For now, back to work," he sighed, and she grinned.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

 _Okay, so we got past that part all right. But dammit, Arthur, you didn't so much as blink. What do I have to do to get you to wake the hell up!_

 _Sorry. Sorry. Forget I said anything. I'm sorry. I mean, take your time. We all want you back, but…_

 _They'll kick me out if I can't keep calm. I know because they did that, yesterday. Threatened Gwaine once, too – he's pretty upset, still, he figures it's partly his fault, what happened to you, because he didn't get there on time. Before the ambulance, but still he figures… not in time. Anyway, he's a cop so I guess they'd hesitate to sic Security on him. Not me, though…_

 _So I guess you're in for another one-sided conversation. You know what to do about that if I'm bothering you really, don't you?_

 _Just… wake up, and tell me to shut up._

 _Arthur?..._

 _You know Gwaine's thing is about done, that's what he said when he was here earlier. I guess they got both Ivans, too. The whole DEA bust._

 _She was involved in that too. Low-level user, though, is all._

 _Addict._

 _Dammit._

 _I've never said that to anyone, about her. Even if it was true. It wasn't her fault, though, she was just a kid, and no one tells Jeff no. I mean, no one without a crazy expectation of getting their teeth kicked in._

 _You know this already, that kind of life usually comes with some temporary killing off the senses, it has to. No one chooses that because they like cheap meaningless sex with random strangers and all the risks that come with it. Selling your body always means selling your soul, and that hurts so much worse and you have to have a… what do they call it… anesthesia. Right?_

 _And it was fine, until Jeff got involved with those boys from out-of-state… but Gwaine's covering that with his case. I was telling you about Rosie._

 _The first time, in her bedroom upstairs. I don't even remember why I was up there, anymore, but walking past the open door. I close my eyes and I can still see her, her arm skinny and white and limp and trusting in Jeff's hard scabby copper hand, her legs tangled and bare on the unmade mattress. I might've started a fight with him then, except for that sharp point so close to her…_

 _But she looked up from a kind of awful fascination of the needle sliding into her skin and saw me at the door. And her eyes were blank, empty windows like her soul was sold out. Abandoned, like a foreclosed house._

 _And she laughed. This deep throaty sexy sound, with her head thrown back, and that was even worse and I had to get out of there._

 _I suppose I might as well tell you the next part too. I mean, you're probably not even listening, and if you wake up… sorry, when you wake up… you won't even remember this shit, so…_

 _That couch in the common room, where I used to sleep if I didn't go to the basement? Smells like cat piss, and we haven't even got a cat. The room smells like the rest of the house, like pizza and spilled beer and stale smoke and popcorn and sweat and this weak lavender from when someone stuck a Glade plug-in, in the wall, one time. But the couch – it's got no pillows or blankets just stuffing coming out of the torn places – smells like cat piss._

 _The morning after the first time I saw her with a needle. When I woke up she was already kneeling by the couch, and touching me. There. Y'know. Jeans all undone and her hand right down and… I couldn't've stopped her then if I wanted to._

 _That's part of sleeping, y'know, for someone like me. Knowing where you are and who's around and what might happen when you're not paying attention. You get to start sleeping light. But I smelled her strawberry shampoo like that outdoor fruit market that meets on Saturdays in the commuter parking lot. Thick and hot and damp, and she whispered, It's just me._

 _And all. I mean, you know. I mean, look at you, you've had girlfriends touch you, I'm sure. And more._

 _I had one hand in the back of her t-shirt and the other making another rip in the couch back and my face in her neck and damn she smelled good and my damn spine was going to snap and my muscles wouldn't stop shaking and…_

 _Freakin' house exploded into freakin' matchsticks, man._

 _But then it was over._

 _Have you had that, too. One second it's incredible and you're on top of the world and the next you wish you were dead. And everything is worse._

 _But she was kneeling there and I was trying to let go and the room was spinning around and my pulse was hammering all around my body – and especially there - like a heart attack and I wished it would just happen and kill me already._

 _Don't be mad, Angel, she told me. She whispered, and kissed me and… don't laugh, Arthur. My one chance to kiss the only girl I ever loved without paying a damn price first, and I was still completely out of it, and my mouth was too dry from breathing hard to kiss her back._

 _Don't be mad, she said, with her lips still touching mine. And I didn't know if she was talking about what she'd done to herself last night, or what she'd done to me in the morning._

 _Don't be mad, Angel, she said. I was just… curious._

 _And then she stood up and left and I was just sprawled there on the couch worse than drunk or high and my fly open and my damn heart showing to everyone in the house because it's the common room after all and I felt like I just shouted my name, my real name, from the roof with a bullhorn. Everyone saw, everyone knows. And I'm gutted, you know. Weak, and so damn helpless._

 _I couldn't breathe. And that time… it was really hard to get back in control._

 _And it's all over now. And I should've… I should've just… I don't know. Too late now, anyway._

 _But finally when my head was clear again and I looked around, there's no one left in the room except Candy, sitting cross-legged in the chair next to the couch, still dressed from last night, her one hand dangling over the arm of the chair with those fire-engine red claws and her cigarette trailing smoke all lazy and heartless._

 _And she said, I knew it would happen._

 _Candy, the philosopher. The scholar of life. Like a damn horoscope or something._

 _You're too tender-hearted for your own good, Angel, she told me. Best forget her if you can._

 _Couldn't, even then. Already it was too late. And me, I'm rolling over to the back of the couch to do up my pants where no one can watch and see anymore and I'm sticky y'know and I smell like all of them, now._

 _Cat piss._

 _And I… probably shouldn't have told you all that, after all. Not right before telling you about meeting Angus. It's… hard to go from one story to the other. Y'know._

 _Because I found her in the morning, too. That morning._

 **A/N: I'm sorry, I told a few people that this chapter would end with Arthur finding Angel, but… it didn't turn out that way, I had to rearrange – but I think this is the longest chapter for this story, so that should compensate! Arthur and Angel will happen in the next chapter, and meantime, Arthur (and the reader) find out more about Angel's past…**


	6. Guardian 2

**Part 3: Guardian** (cont.)

Arthur didn't change from his uniform at the end of their shift, for the same reason that he was going alone.

They needed Angel. Not to agree again, passive-aggressively, then slip out the minute no one had an eye on him. Candy was right about the risk, but so was he, about the inevitability of discovery, for Angel. They needed him to know what he was getting into – and he probably did, maybe better than any of them - but to commit, and trust.

Arthur parked – a bit illegally – in the alley next to Johns Motors. The air smelled a mixture of oil and diesel, and in the dark, the park at the end of the street was only a blur of sparse green-black on star-speckled midnight blue. The rest of the neighborhood, business rather than residential, seemed deserted.

The big doors for the garage-bay were pulled down and locked, the glass-fronted office-and-waiting-area dimly lit by a single bulb from a back hallway, iron grating pulled down over the glass and also locked into place. _Closed_ sign clear over the customer's entrance; he peered into likely corners and found security cameras blinking the red light of activity.

He angled a bit more and saw a shadow move, from further down the hall. Place wasn't deserted, then.

So he could rap to gain attention. But Angel would never come to answer such a signal, and it was a toss-up – if the street kid was in fact present - whether the shop foreman Candy had mentioned, would deny the whole thing and tip Angel off for a back-door escape, or actually listen to Arthur's request. A stranger in a cop's uniform. Hm, he didn't like his odds.

Arthur returned to the alley, examining the building. Probably it was too wide for someone to jump from one roof to another, but at a dead run and desperate… He got back in the car and let it roll forward to the street in the rear, a one-way leading toward the park; he made the turn and parked again.

In the rear was a large lot, seven-foot chain-link fence with privacy strips and three strands of angled barbed-wire to prevent break-ins, wide gate to allow vehicle access chained and padlocked in three places. Pocketing the keys, Arthur circled, paying close attention to the fence, and found what he was looking for. A rear entrance, of sorts – a narrow triangular section of fence loosened. Hooked in place to appear secure, closer scrutiny showed it relatively easy to maneuver the strands apart.

The preferred route for Angel, he guessed, because of the security cameras for the front area. He also guessed that the shop foreman, feeding a street kid in exchange for sweeping up or whatever, wouldn't be staying the night himself, or letting Angel do the same. Maybe in the back lot, but…

He climbed carefully to the roof of his car to look over the fence. The perimeter of the lot was filled with cars in various stages of disrepair, some of them blocking others in. Kept for spare parts or waiting on payments to continue repair work or simply abandoned, he couldn't tell in the dark. There were windows in the building itself, and blinds were pulled, but definitely two shadows in the room that was lit. One in more vigorous action – back and forth, up and down – the other stationary, showing smaller movements.

Arthur waited, a quarter of an hour maybe, and the back door opened.

Angel, quite clearly silhouetted in the back-lit doorway, the sleeves of Arthur's red shirt pushed up to his elbows, bent to prop the door open with some handy heavy object. He responded to some comment of his unseen companion, then threw his head back in a laugh that made Arthur smile involuntarily. Reaching back to reclaim two large black trash bags, he carried them to a back dumpster before returning to the building.

All right, then. Arthur figured the boy would leave out the back, too. He jumped down from the roof to take a more comfortable position in the driver's seat, and settled in to wait.

Two hours later, the night was black-dark, the lot illuminated by a blue-green bulb, a single weird orange streetlight out toward the main road that bordered the park. Arthur had his window rolled down, his engine off, but the distance and the sounds of the city prevented his ears from giving him any warning, before Angel was pushing his army rucksack out through the hole in the fence, ducking and twisting his body to follow, the hood of his dark blue sweatshirt already up.

He paused in his crouch, wary enough to check his surroundings, even to glancing up the sides of the buildings that formed the one-way. His hooded gaze seemed to linger on Arthur's car, thirty feet away, and Arthur reached for his door handle just as the boy turned to hook the fence-wiring back in place.

A ripple of reaction shuddered through Angel's slender frame at the sound of the car door, and he abandoned the fence, scooping his ruck to his shoulder and rising to stride forward without looking around. Shoulders hunched, and hurrying in the direction of the park.

"Angel!" Arthur called. "Hold up!"

The street boy flinched and ducked immediately down the alley on the other side of the building neighboring the motor shop. Arthur jogged forward – then stopped at the alley entrance.

It was a dead-end, blocked by a high wall. Metal banged gently – the loose lid of one of the dumpsters. Four doors – no, five – lined the alley, all handle-less and undifferentiated. Shadows crowded each other, and Arthur couldn't see his quarry. Couldn't hear anything even to guess whether Angel had hidden or disappeared down some unseen hidey-hole.

"Angel!" he tried again. "It's me." Gosh, how stupid that sounded. "Officer Penn – Arthur."

He didn't step forward or try to search, even with the penlight on his belt; he was pretty sure the kid hadn't had time to skip through one of the doors without Arthur catching sound or movement, so he probably wasn't escaping out of earshot. And Arthur didn't want to _find_ or _catch_ him; he wanted to _convince_ him.

"Hey," he said. "Can I talk to you."

And waited. And waited.

"We're trying," he said finally. "Gather enough evidence, build a solid case against them. Your Jeff and Fagin."

"Not _my_ anything," Angel's voice rang clearly down the alley, though Arthur still couldn't see anything, squinting into the gloom.

"Enemies, maybe," he suggested. After another pause, he went on. "But we still haven't got them for Angus' murder. Not without your eyewitness testimony."

Silence.

"I think you're underestimating yourself," Arthur said, shifting to kick his boots in a short casual pace across the entrance to the alley. "I think you could do a good job on the stand." He ignored a rude noise to add, "With a temporary address – and a haircut…"

Another scoffing noise, and Arthur was beginning to lose patience. A month it had been since they'd lost the old man, and for the effort they'd put in, the rewards had been small and uncertain and now it seemed the success depended on the pride and caprice of this street kid.

"Come on," he said. "Come out and talk to me." He waited again. "Look, you're not the only one who lost a friend when Angus died and it may be good enough for you to have told your story once, for his family and friends to believe you, but for me it's not. It's not good enough, Angel, I want these bastards behind bars for life, but I…"

He bit his tongue and cursed internally. And continued, through a shifting shuffling noise and the impression of movement in the gloom.

"I need your help to do that. I know you're scared and no one blames you, you have every right to be, these two seem pretty dangerous."

One shadow was more solid than the rest, and Angel stood before him, just out of arms' reach. He lifted his hands to pull his hood down before he spoke, and Arthur was struck by the total absence of sarcasm in his tone. "And I need you to understand, I'm not afraid of what they might do to me. They killed Angus and he wasn't the only one, what if it's someone else the next time?"

Someone like Candy, maybe, Arthur thought. Someone Angel cared about – maybe he didn't _trust_ anyone, but he did still _care_.

"So we stop them," he said. "Then there isn't a next time."

Still the street boy hesitated. "For two years, I told Angus so much, but it was never enough, and now he's dead and it's my fault."

"It's not," Arthur said.

"It's always going to feel like it."

"Angus did this job for thirty years," Arthur told him. "He knew what he was doing, every step of the way, and no one made his decisions for him. Come on, now. He wouldn't want you to blame yourself, would he?"

"He'd want me to… move into his basement and get a GED and paint." Angel's smile was twisted and his eyes shone with unshed tears.

"He'd want me to nail those bastards with a solid guilty conviction and life in prison without parole," Arthur added, in much the same way. "All right?"

Angel nodded, and Arthur – thinking of Gwen unself-consciously reaching out to touch his shoulder, to pat his knee, even filthy and stinking – took a light grip of the boy's jacket near his shoulder and gave him a comradely shake.

"Okay," he said, using his grasp to propel Angel into moving, then releasing him, "If my place isn't good enough for you, we can figure out something else, but for now –"

"It's good enough."

As they exited the blind alley for the narrow one-way street, Angel glanced away from Arthur, toward the closer main street and the park, and stumbled to a stop.

"Are you –" _Okay_ , Arthur didn't get a chance to say.

"Hit me," Angel said bluntly, desperately.

Arthur swung about to look at him, gaunt and bone-white under the streetlight, saying confusedly, "What in the –"

"Hit me!" Angel insisted. "Really hard, right away."

He held out his hands as if trying to ward Arthur off, and backed up against the wall of the next building. Arthur turned his head to see whatever it was that had prompted this reaction, and his brain caught on a split second before his eyes found them.

Three of them. Loitering a few dozen yards from them at the end of the alley, their backs to the light, casually intent in a way Arthur interpreted immediately. Someone Angel recognized, surely, who'd recognize him, talking to – a uniformed cop.

No wonder Angel had demanded a bit of disguising violence.

Arthur's glance to the side had been swift as thought, his body falling naturally into reactive patterns before he'd even fully faced Angel again. Seizing him with efficient and dispassionate force, he spun the street boy to face the wall, kicking his feet apart and yanking the pack off, keeping Angel plastered helplessly in place with one hand hard at the base of his neck.

"John Doe Whatever-the-hell-your-name-is," he said, not raising his voice suspiciously but not bothering to try to keep it down, either, performing a perfunctory pat-down. Yielding nothing – unsurprising. "You are under arrest for trespassing, on suspicion of breaking and entering. You have the right to remain silent…" He went on reciting Angel's rights as he retrieved cuffs from the back of his uniform belt and snapped them into place on the boy's wrists, skinny and bony. He figured the other three – who lingered at a distance in his peripheral view – would guess what he was saying, probably familiar to them by the cadence and sound.

Taking a handful of Angel's jacket and sweatshirt at the collar, Arthur bent to snag the rucksack with his other hand – letting the other three see him appraising them for a moment, before turning to march Angel back up the one-way toward his car.

Angel twisted in his grip like he was resisting, but taking the opportunity to glance over both their shoulders.

"Are they coming or staying put?" Arthur asked shortly, quietly.

"Staying put."

Arthur dropped the pack and opened the back-seat door without letting go of Angel's collar, then guided him with a shove for show and a gentler hand on his head to keep him from bumping it. He shut the door, leaned in the open driver's window to hit the trunk latch, then deposited the rucksack and slammed it shut again.

Those three, still there. And they'd have to drive past them… in his own POV, though maybe they'd take it for an unmarked squad car. That, or reverse the wrong way down the one-lane and avoid them so obviously it would be suspicious.

Arthur lifted his chin and set his hand on the butt of his service pistol, stalking back down the street toward the three. In the car, Angel hissed in warning; he ignored it.

Caught off guard momentarily, to judge by their body language – after a brief and maybe wordless consultation, two of them peeled off and sauntered away. Unhurried, but neither pausing nor looking back.

"Is there a problem," Arthur called to the one who remained.

"No, officer, no problem at all." Oily, ingratiating. Smart-ass.

"Take down your hood for me and let me see your hands," Arthur ordered.

The other complied, streetlight gleaming orange from dark skin and tightly curled hair – dyed or bleached a lighter color than black or brown, but also looking orange in the streetlight. The man's teeth as he grinned and eyeballs as he cut his glance away, also looked orange. There was a row of twinkly-black studs fringing his right ear.

Arthur recognized him for Angel's Jeff. Or Jefe, as he supposed the man's actual street name was. His hand tightened on the gun, as much to keep it in holster, as to prepare to draw it. He wondered if the man had the phone Ben had given Angel in his pocket right then.

"Can you tell me what your business is, out here at this time of night?" Arthur said. Normally he might have demanded to see identification – but this wasn't _normally_.

"Oh, Officer, it's not so late," Jeff protested, with a cheese-eating grin. "Just planning on meeting up with a friend."

"A friend," Arthur said, glancing to be sure the other two were still retreating. He didn't take his hand from his service weapon.

"Looks like you got to him first," Jeff said, nodding toward Arthur's car. "Can I ask what the charges are? how long til my friend's a free man again?"

"That's not your business," Arthur reminded him.

"Maybe Detective Angus could put in a good word for him, though," Jeff suggested. Wily. "Do you know him? Detective Angus?"

Arthur's heart thudded. Had Jeff guessed, and was he now being warned off? Or was the other man just testing? This was Ben's precinct, and it would be suspicious if he so much as hinted it wasn't his jurisdiction by pretending he didn't know about Ben's death… "Detective Angus is deceased," he said evenly.

"Ah!" Jeff said, affecting surprise. He put Arthur in mind of a snake, cold and cunning.

"If you'll excuse me," Arthur said, a politeness only, since the _if_ wasn't in question and they both knew it. "I advise you to move along and find business and another friend elsewhere."

"That's good advice, Officer," Jeff agreed unctuously, and glided to the side of the street exit. "I'll give you a bit in return? Take what he says with a grain of salt." He jutted his chin toward the car behind Arthur. "My friend has a wild imagination."

Arthur didn't respond. He backed a few steps out of common sense, then looked over his shoulder twice more before he reached the car, but Jeff stayed where he was.

Angel was nearly hyperventilating in the back seat. "Oh, damn, Arthur," he moaned. "Do you know who that _was_?"

Arthur started the car, allowing a slight smile since his back was to the younger man. First time the kid had called him by name, he thought. That was progress, maybe. And he hadn't succumbed to the temptation to shoot Jeff in the face, in spite of the fact that there were no witnesses but Angel who surely wouldn't say a word against it.

"Yeah," he said, setting the gear and letting the car roll forward. "You're a good artist. I know who he is."

"And you just walked right up to him…" Angel swore to himself, more softly, aggravation and relief in equal measures.

Some part of the boy's body thudded against the back of Arthur's seat as Angel doubled over, squirming in feigned protest for their audience. They came out on the deserted main street; Jeff watched them from behind an orange glow as he lit a cigarette.

Three blocks down, and Jeff hadn't moved, and neither of the other two appeared.

"I think we're good," Arthur said. "I think he'll think it was a legitimate arrest, and not anything more."

Angel let out a lungful of air in an explosive sigh, twisting to look out the back awkwardly – his hands still cuffed behind him. "They were waiting for me," he said. "They knew I'd be there, tonight…" He turned his head to meet Arthur's gaze in the mirror. "How'd they know?"

Arthur looked away, thinking a bit guiltily of Candy, hoping she'd neither spilled the beans voluntarily, nor been forced to tell. "I'm nearly a stranger, and I can find you," he said. "It's not really a surprise, is it, that he did the same?"

Angel hummed thoughtfully, settling himself into a more comfortable sprawl. Arthur didn't expect any effusive gratitude or girlish exclamations of _You saved my life_! but he wondered just how close the street boy's thoughts ran to his own.

 _Wonder what they might've done, if I hadn't been there…_

"Give me a minute to clear the neighborhood, and I'll pull over and unlock you," he said aloud.

"Can I call shotgun, too?" Angel grinned, good humor and cocky optimism evidently completely restored.

And that, Arthur thought, was evidence of a young man unusually good at self-control.

* * *

 _Make me a witness, take me out  
Out of darkness, out of doubt_

 _I won't weigh you down with good intention  
Won't make fire out of clay or other inventions_

 _Will we burn in heaven, like we do down here?  
Will the change come while we're waiting?  
Everyone is waiting_

 _And when we're done soul searching  
As we carried the weight and died for a cause_

 _Is misery made beautiful right before our eyes?  
Will mercy be revealed or blind us where we stand?_

"Witness" ~ Sarah McLachlan

* * *

"Don't worry, you'll do fine," Gwen said two mornings later, reaching to straighten the collar of Arthur's borrowed shirt at Angel's neck. It was a deep blue; paired with new jeans and shoes, and with the street boy's hair combed, _homeless_ was not an assumption anyone was going to make.

Though his partner's words did make Arthur wonder, which of them she meant.

It was his turn to trust. Both of them, since this was a part of his life Gwen hadn't seen yet. And in some ways, more personal than sharing his apartment – even including the bathroom – with Angel.

The lobby area of the fifth-floor office was perfectly regulated for temperature, and lightly scented with something floral, and he still wanted to pace out his unsettled nerves. Or just run away, like he'd done a few times in his childhood, anticipating his father's end-of-the-day arrival after some misdeed.

He respected his father, and understood him.

Didn't stop the disappointment hurting. Every time.

"Come on," Arthur said to his partner's fussing over the boy. "You're not his mother." Gwen gave him a dirty look, but Angel just grinned at her, not minding the attention or Arthur's comment.

"Officers," the secretary said from behind the desk. "Mister – ah – Angel. Mister Penn will see you now."

Arthur took two steps back and saw his father's office door open at the end of a dim hall, light spilling out from the glass-walled room. Saw his father's familiar shape – memorized silhouette against the hall light in the open doorway of his room as he pretended to be asleep to avoid interaction, those late nights – and his feet were moving of their own accord.

Leading Gwen and Angel, as much to miss seeing their reactions and impressions as to convey his own confidence. And if it had been a private meeting, Penn Sr. might have had arms crossed, or hands on his hips.

"Arthur," he said only, and hesitated a heartbeat – maybe unnoticeable to those behind him – before offering his hand for a firm, impersonal shake. Arthur couldn't remember, at the moment, when was the last time his father embraced him.

"Father," he said evenly in return, and side-stepped to make introductions without any further fuss.

Without picturing his mother there, looking up at her husband with a smile equal parts adoration, exasperation, entreaty. Without picturing his father broken and weeping and _too-damn-late_ , at the graveside.

"This is my partner, Officer Gwennie McLeod," he said, and Gwen was professionally deferential, in spite of Penn Sr.'s raised eyebrows and eloquent glance at Arthur. A reaction to her unexpected attractiveness, he thought, but went on. "And this is Angel."

Angel, to his credit, stuck his hand right out. Arthur's father hesitated with such obvious distaste that Arthur cringed.

"This is your transient, Arthur?" Penn Sr. asked condescendingly.

"Sure as hell ain't his boyfriend," Angel returned impudently. Arthur nearly swallowed his tongue, and Gwen imperfectly covered a snort of amusement with a more ladylike cough; Angel recalled the lawyer's startled attention to his spurned courtesy, extending his hand a few more inches. "Come on, we can be friends. It ain't catching."

"What isn't," Penn Sr. said frostily.

Angel raised his eyebrows emphatically at his hand. "Whatever it is about me that you object to."

Arthur's father grunted, then briefly took Angel's hand, pulling him through the open door by the contact. "No, Arthur, your presence won't be necessary," he stopped Arthur entering, blocking the doorway with his body as he prepared to retreat into the office. "Make yourselves comfortable in the waiting area, if you please." Belatedly he added, "And you can ask the secretary for anything you might need."

Arthur stared in disbelief – though really, why was he surprised – as the door shut firmly. Gwen gave his shirtsleeve a gentle tug.

"Come on, let's go sit," she said. "I'm sure he'll be fine."

"You mean Angel or my father," he grouched, but followed, continuing sarcastically, "Have you met either of them? What on earth makes you think this conversation will be fine?"

"Because if he's anything like you –" Gwen nudged him toward one of the chairs – a low boxy thing that reminded him of airport lounges and was surprisingly comfortable – "he can be professional enough to put his feelings – maybe prejudices – aside, for the greater good. In this case… this case." She seated herself next to him with confident grace, crossing one knee over the other in a feminine way, in spite of her black jeans and ever-present constricting knot of hair. "Was he always like this, or did it get worse after your mom passed?"

He pushed himself forward on the smooth black leather of the seat to dabble through the magazines on the square glass table between them. "How do you know about that?"

"Gwaine told me." Her eyes were dark and gentle, but not pitying, at least. "He said he thought, Angus was the first funeral you'd been to, since."

"I'm going to give _him_ a bullet between his eyes and a burial in the backyard," Arthur growled, discarding both _Golfer's Digest_ and _People_.

"He was giving me a heads-up," she said, a neutral explanation. "In case that message on Angus' phone didn't pan out."

"I don't know why they ever got married," Arthur said bluntly, not looking up from the table of magazines, but not really seeing it either. "They were so different…"

She followed his switch of topics. "How long were they married?" she said, in a tone of casual interest.

He had to stop and think. "Thirty… one years."

She made a noise of surprise and approval that made him rethink his impression of his parents' relationship, too. Neither had seemed unhappy or bitter; he'd never once heard the big D that kids feared, and several of his classmates suffered when he was a kid. He wasn't ready to concede the point, though.

"What it meant for me was, pleasing one meant disappointing the other," he told her.

She wasn't sympathetic to that; he read it in her single raised eyebrow. "I think, all things considered, you were a lucky kid," she said. "I was a lucky kid, even if my dad worked two jobs and we never had a yard or money for college. You can always look around and find someone worse off, and be thankful for what you have instead of complaining it isn't better."

He sighed. "I suppose that's true."

She reached for the _People_ magazine, then settled back. "Angel told me that."

Arthur snorted.

And was saved from having to settle for _Golfer's Digest_ himself, by the text-alert vibration of his phone in his pocket.

"It's Gwaine," he reported to his partner, who murmured vaguely and turned a page, and he was satisfied on _that_ question, anyway.

 **U said it was mprtnt.**

He texted back, **ALO had info on 1 of ur trgts. Can u meet 4 lunch r smthing?**

Yesterday morning Arthur had notified his former partner that they'd recovered their witness – and again let him know that Angel had remained all day while he and Gwen were on the job. And evidently hadn't been watching tv all day, there in the room where Angus' files were all spread out and tacked on the wall.

 **Where r u now?**

 **Penn Sr. office. Witness eval.**

 **Good luck. Txt me when ur thru, well get burgers.**

He smiled. **Ok.** And closed the messaging feature on his phone.

Arthur had been an impatient person a long time; in many ways he still was. But for the sort of work his job required, he'd had to learn to wait, without letting it affect his reactions, mood and temper.

And it was a good thing, because Penn Sr. kept Angel all morning.

When the boy finally emerged, he looked worse than after a late-night arrest and a fistfight in lockup. Twice he bumped into the corridor wall, coming toward them, and in the light of the lobby all the color seemed to have leached from his skin into his eyes, leaving a startling pale-dark contrast that had both Arthur and Gwen on their feet.

"Are you all right?" Gwen said in concern.

Angel nodded slowly, bloodless lips clamped as though if he opened his mouth to speak, he might throw up instead.

Arthur guessed he hadn't realized the process of walking a witness through their testimony – reliving the events, it may be, slowly and with excruciatingly repetitive detail – could be so rough. "Here, sit a minute," he said, maneuvering Angel into position to take his chair, and to Gwen he added the suggestion, "Glass of water?"

"Your dad wanted to see you," Angel said to Arthur, emotionlessly and just before sinking to the edge of the seat.

Arthur grimaced as Gwen turned to pass the request on to the secretary. "I'll be just a minute."

The office door at the end of the hall was still ajar, and Arthur pushed it open, without preamble and without entering. His father was on the edge of his seat behind the desk, suit-coat draped over the back, tie loosened and sleeves rolled with precise neatness still bearing a mute testimony of their own to the strain of the interview.

"Arthur," he said without looking up, busily organizing paperwork. "Come in and shut the door." Arthur obeyed, taking a parade-rest stance before the desk, something his father didn't – or affected not to – notice. "I understand you haven't yet brought any of this information to the attention of your superiors in an official capacity." There was the lilt of a question, a patronizing invitation to answer in defense.

"No, sir," Arthur said. "We want to bring murder charges, not a list of pettier crimes."

Penn Sr. made a noise of agreement. "For which the boy's testimony is the lynchpin, and the rest of this material all evidence supporting motivation."

"Essentially," Arthur allowed. "We thought to piggy-back a handful of these charges on the murder to establish motivation, without muddying the water trying to prove every one of Angel's claims in a single trial."

Penn Sr. grunted. "Well, when you go to the DA's office for warrants, you can have them request this information from mine, along with my notes and a transcription of the witness interview."

Arthur breathed a sigh of relief, stopping himself from blurting out something like, _So it went okay, then._

His father glanced up and caught something from his expression anyway. "The boy is – deliberately antagonistic at times," he stated. "But he can turn that off when it suits him. He'll argue, but he didn't lose his temper or respond too inappropriately to baiting. He's got his head on straight – he's sure of what he knows and isn't afraid to admit to uncertainty. Solid witness, if a bit rough around the edges. He'll do fine with a bit of coaching."

Arthur had the unexpected and disorienting sensation of taking an involuntary mental and emotional step back. And for the first time, he saw past his father's attitude and behavior, to the fact that a busy high-profile lawyer had taken hours from his schedule at very short notice, to make something of a homeless boy's story on an unofficial case – as a favor to his son.

That meant… quite a lot, actually.

"I really appreciate this, Father," he said quietly.

Penn Sr. brushed it off, still shuffling and organizing his desktop. "Have you given any thought to what happens to your witness when you're done with him?" He glanced up again. "Back on the street he goes?"

"Why?" Arthur asked. Because _why do you care?_ sounded a bit rude, now.

"You gave him your shirt, Arthur. I just don't want you setting expectations too high, only to have them disappointed."

Arthur struggled a moment with the instinct to turn that question back on his father – which expectations of his had proved too high, what parts of his life proved disappointment. Because objectively, he was right; Ben hadn't been able to persuade Angel to change or accept the help he wanted to give.

"It's up to him," he said neutrally. "His choice, if he prefers the freedom of the streets."

Penn Sr. snorted at that sentiment, closing the lumpy file and standing. He put his hands on his hips and studied Arthur as he hadn't taken the time to, yet that morning. "You look well," he finally said. "Chasing criminals literally still agrees with you?"

"Rather chase a perp than a squash ball," Arthur returned flippantly. Silence, and an awkward one. Expecting stubborn resistance and cold negativity, he decided it was a good thing for him to do anyway, to attempt, "How've you been? Since Mom…"

For a brief moment, the façade slipped, around his father's eyes. "It's not easy," the older man said stiffly. Arthur nodded, and Penn Sr. made an abortive motion toward him, saying with faintly defensive embarrassment, "You look like her. I look at you, and see…"

That, Arthur could understand. "I have that too," he told his father, striving for empathy rather than accusation. "I look at you, and see –" he gestured at the empty space to his father's right. "Where she belongs, and isn't," he finished lamely.

His father cleared his throat, dropped his gaze to the desktop. "She was irreplaceable," he said softly.

Arthur nodded in agreement, trying to swallow the painful lump in his throat. Trying not to think, _isn't a son, an only child, irreplaceable too?_

"Well," Penn Sr. said, businesslike again. "Do let me know, if I can be of further assistance." Arthur moved to the door, and his father added, "Or on any future cases…"

Arthur paused, surprised. That was different than the sarcastic drawl, _I assume you need something, what is it_. His father's way of rebuilding their bridge?

He said, "I will. And thank you, Father."

When he got to the waiting room, he found Angel curled up sideways in the chair, Gwen leaning over the arm of hers to watch over his shoulder. There was a magazine on his knees, but he was holding what Arthur thought was a pen – his first thought was, crossword puzzle. Or some girly personality quiz.

At least the boy's color was better, and he seemed more relaxed.

"Come on," Arthur said. "Let's go get something to eat. Gwaine's going to meet us." Angel capped his writing utensil and handed it back to Gwen, along with a scrap of thin narrow paper. "What is that?"

"Can I show him?" she asked the street boy. Angel shrugged and tossed his magazine carelessly to the table, unfolding himself from the chair and stalking past Arthur to the elevator.

"Show me what?" Arthur asked.

"Don't smudge it." She handed him the scrap – a receipt, he saw – and on the back…

Her eyes. Just her eyes, the suggestion of nose and brows. Not straight-on but slightly turned, and the astonishment that Angel could make such a small part of her instantly recognizable, was compounded by the _expression_. A cutaway glance, a look of shy and secret admiration, full of promise and maybe the hint of desire.

"I think artwork is therapeutic for him," she went on, "it must have been quite the marathon in there with your father."

It was not something he thought he'd ever seen in her eyes before, and as his pulse picked up in response, he recognized a secondary reaction of jealousy not unlike what he'd felt seeing her reaction to Lancelot.

How had Angel seen this look in the few days he'd been with them? And then he'd dared to draw it, with –

"This isn't ink." He managed to keep his tone even; she was watching him.

"No, it's my mascara from my purse," she said.

Even worse. It was amazing, it was incredible, and it made him mad. She wasn't _his_ , but equally she should never be Angel's. For so many reasons. Fewer reasons for her not to be Lancelot's, but she deserved someone for a lifetime, he felt. Not just coffee and a month's fling with a Lenscrafters model, or whatever twisted puppy-dog admiration Angel came out with.

"What do you think?"

Arthur grunted only, and handed it back to her.

"Well, I think it's good," she said tartly.

Angel called over, "Elevator's here."

 **A/N: Good news, this story is done in rough-draft form. Bad news, I'm going traveling for the holiday next week, for a week, so there will probably be only one more chapter before a week-and-a-half gap, or thereabouts… Indifferent news, I'm close to finishing my NaNoWriMo, and hopefully that will be done by the time I get home after Christmas, so I can be free to write more Merlin 'verse after** _ **Angel**_ **is finished.**

 **And, thanks to everyone who reviewed so far that I haven't responded to in a PM! I appreciate you all!**


	7. Fallen 1

**Part 4: Fallen**

 _Say when you're alone, it's better 'cause nobody knows you  
When no one's your friend, it's better 'cause nobody leaves you_

 _So you've turned your back on a world that you could never have  
'Cause your heart's been cracked, and everyone else's is goin' mad_

 _But I hear voices and I see colors, but I wish I felt nothing  
Then it might be easy for me, like it is for you_

 _Now all of these people come up from deep holes pullin' you down  
And it's just no use, when all the abuse follows you down_

 _By the morning you've gone, leavin' me here all alone  
Sayin' it's no mystery, I know that nobody here needs me_

 _But I hear voices and I see colors, but I wish I felt nothing  
Then it might be easy for me, like it is for you_

 _And I know you believe that you and me don't belong here  
And the worst we could do is keep trying to pretend we care_

 _But I hear voices and I see colors, but I wish I felt nothing  
Then it might be easy for me, like it is for you  
Like it is for you  
Like it is for you_

 _"I Wish I Felt Nothing" ~ The Wallflowers_

* * *

"We'll get a seat," Gwen said clearly in Arthur's ear as the noise and smell of hot grease inside the McDonalds assailed them.

12:25. And busy. He nodded, maneuvering for the end of the line before realizing he didn't know what either of his companions might order. He spun, but Angel was already halfway to the back of the restaurant, heading for a booth that looked into the play-place, Gwen on his heels.

Arthur grunted to himself, lost in the clamor of construction workers caked in earth and mortar, young mothers with raucous and inattentive children, older couples slow and hard of hearing. Turning his attention to the posted menu, he resigned himself to the half-step shuffle forward every other minute.

He could get Angel a Happy Meal, just for a joke. Or three, so the lanky boy could actually eat his fill. But for Gwen… a salad? Or would she be offended, thinking he thought she needed to eat light? And then he'd have to choose dressing… _Come on, Arthur, you've eaten lunch with her often enough, what –_

"That bad, huh?" Another voice said in his ear, and he turned to catch Gwaine's grin and casual swing-back of long dark hair. Almost, the expression covered the signs of exhaustion – but they were repeated in wrinkled t-shirt, smudged jacket and jeans.

"What?" Arthur said stupidly, wondering if Gwaine meant his menu choices.

"This morning." They shuffled forward a half-step; the few that had gathered behind Arthur hemmed and hawed but didn't outright protest Gwaine's cut in line.

"No. I guess it was fine. Say," Arthur said, deciding to get three Big Mac's, just to save having to decide, "Angel has news for you. He says your Ivan is actually twins. Identical, but two guys. Ivan, they're both called, the Two-errible."

" _That's_ terrible," Gwaine said automatically, but his dark eyes held the faraway look Arthur knew meant his wheels were clicking away madly. "Hm. That explains… that." Arthur didn't interrupt his train of thought.

Orders given, they shuffled to the side to await the assembly of greasy food on a pair of brown trays padded with paper mats and copies of their receipts.

"Here's some food for thought, for you," Gwaine said, private in the noise of everybody else and their companions talking at once, all around them. "When you talk to your captain, d'ya think they're going to let you stay on the case?"

Arthur said immediately and defensively – though he already knew where Gwaine was going with it, and he did have a point – "Why not?"

"Your rank. Your rep." Gwaine's eyes were rarely so serious, his voice so quiet and even. "You're too close to this one. _I_ wouldn't let you keep it."

Arthur snorted. Of course he wouldn't; if it were up to Gwaine who pursued warrants and arrests, he couldn't – he shouldn't – give preference to a friend. "Depends who they give it to," he said, trying for a little objective distance. "How they get along with Angel."

"That's him, huh?" Gwaine looked over Arthur's shoulder, between standing patrons, over the heads of seated ones. "He looks all right to me. That's your shirt he's wearing, though, isn't it…" He swung around to the counter before Arthur could answer, having alerted to the call of the number printed on his receipt. "This's me."

"How is that fair, you get yours before us?" Arthur complained. He'd been waiting longer; he'd spoken to the teen behind the counter first.

"Smaller order," Gwaine tossed over his shoulder with a grin.

Arthur grunted to himself, sidling closer to the counter in readiness. He could see from the pair of trays that held his order for the three of them that it was almost complete, and looked up to watch Gwaine make his way to the back row by the play-place window. Arthur's former partner set his tray on the vacant table beside the one Gwen and Angel shared from opposite sides; Arthur saw Gwen turn on the bench to greet Gwaine as Angel stood into the aisle to be introduced.

"Number One-Forty-Three," Arthur was told, and collected the order carefully, a tray in each hand, drinks sloshing gently and precariously around the ice.

Eyes on his burden through the waiting section, ears full of restaurant clamor, he had no warning til he reached the back aisle himself – clear and so he dared look up toward his friends in anticipation of reaching them with lunch.

Just in time to see Gwaine give an explosive, two-handed, open-palmed shove to Angel's chest.

The boy's body jerked to the ground, new jeans and Arthur's blue shirt skidding into the grease and ketchup and crumbs of the floor.

Gwen rose on one knee on the bench seat; Arthur doubled his pace, feeling the scowl, the _Hey_! stuck in his throat as inappropriate for time and place and the added embarrassment for them all.

But Angel. Eyebrows high, and grinning like he'd just won a bet – he said something Arthur couldn't make out, but it held Gwen in place.

Gwaine's hands found his hips, his head tilted back, and his great careless laughter rose above the shock and ignorance of the rest of the room, as many as had noticed the altercation. Momentarily, then he reached down his hand to help Angel back to his feet.

And then Arthur was close enough to hear.

"Damn you, punk," Gwaine said with perfect cheer. "You got me, didn't you." He used his grip on Angel's hand to tug him a few steps forward, push him into one of the bench seats for the second table.

"Everything all right?" Arthur said neutrally, sliding one of the trays in front of Angel, but glaring daggers at his former partner.

"Shut up," Gwaine told him with a look that was almost shamefaced. "I haven't got long, Arthur – my witness?"

Angel grinned up at Arthur, perfectly satisfied. Confident, even. Arthur shrugged – unhappy but it wasn't really his business - and retrieved his paper-wrapped sandwich and drink from the tray on the table, before retreating to the seat across from Gwen that Angel had vacated. She moved a messily smeared paper, probably left there by someone else, out of his way to the end of the table.

"They're both Big Macs," he told her shortly, watching over her shoulder as the other two leaned into close and clandestine conversation.

"That's fine." She shrugged unconcern over the choice.

"The hell was that," he added, keeping his own tone even, and low, so as not to be overheard by their friends, over the noise of the dining room.

"What Leon Steele said, I expect," she answered, unwrapping her sandwich and beginning to pick out the onions.

"What did Angel say?" All Gwaine's worry over Arthur losing his cool, and it had been Gwaine conquered by quick temper.

Gwen hesitated. "I think you should ask Gwaine, if you want to know that." He met her eyes, and she defended, "You wouldn't want me telling him, if it had been you, would you?"

No, he wouldn't. But why was it him maintaining composure for the sake of the relationship and the case, when he felt like punching someone as much as the next guy? More, when he thought of Gwennie's eyes drawn with Gwennie's eye makeup.

"How come he hasn't done that, with you?" he said without thinking. Eyes past Gwen on the back of Angel's shaggy head, he saw his partner look at him in surprise, then shift her gaze contemplatively.

"Because females don't fight for dominance or respect with their fists?" she said. "Because he doesn't feel threatened or intimidated by women the same way as men?"

Why not, he wanted to say. Gwen could probably kick his ass with any number of handicaps… but he knew what she meant.

"Because of his mother?" she added softly. "Maybe deep down he has a protective instinct, when it comes to women." He guessed they were both thinking of the young prostitute Candy had mentioned. But it was something more, too…

Control, maybe. Because if you hit someone like Angel – younger and weaker – just for being a smart-ass, it meant in some way that you owed them. Apologies were all well and good, but there was probably an undeniable – however faint – shift of power. Even for guys like Jeff or Fagin, though they'd do it again without regret and probably consider themselves in control to be able to knock him down, beat and bruise him, make him bleed…

For guys like Arthur and Gwaine and Leon Steele – decent, civilized guys, cops even sworn to uphold the law and protect people who couldn't protect themselves – _sorry_ would never be enough. It was the sort of debt only paid off when the other guy popped you one back – which Angel would probably never do.

Arthur had a feeling this was a balance Angel recognized well. Appreciated. Used, maybe.

"Watch your elbow, that's still wet," Gwen told him, reaching across the table to touch the side of his wrist, save his sleeve til he noticed what she referred to.

The smeared trash he'd assumed left there by some other slob, he now realized was one of the paper tray-protectors – an extra picked up from somewhere, turned over to the blank back, and smeared with red paint. No – where would Angel have gotten that? – with ketchup. Finger-painting to continue with his self-therapy after the grueling morning?

Not randomly, he saw.

He tipped his head; Gwen shifted the sheet. Images swam out of the sticky mess, incredibly and subtly detailed. One tall central figure, surrounded by half-size… He said in disbelief, "That's –"

"Ronald McDonald, yeah," she said, smiling so wide her dimple showed. "On an outdoor basketball court – see? – with kids. Did you see the big clown shoes? And the hair is perfect – ketchup-colored."

And in the shrubbery that lined the court, another child. Hiding, winding up to throw something. A rock? An empty and harmless sandwich wrapper? Fireworks, or a grenade, even? Probably only Angel knew. Tell me how you _really_ feel about traditional childhood icons.

"Hells sakes," he said blankly. To do that with one color – a sharp pencil would have been astonishing enough. But in ketchup, in ten minutes maybe – "He did this with his _fingers_?"

"And a straw." She nodded, beaming proudly.

And the astonishment at Angel's talent submerged in a second wave of the irrational but very real jealousy that he'd felt seeing Gwen's eyes painted with such emotion and detail on the back of her receipt. The interruption of Arthur's cell phone cut it off, mercifully, and he turned his attention with gratitude, shifting in the seat to claim it from his pocket.

The number was unfamiliar. He frowned, and answered with a terse, "Hello?"

"Is this Arthur Penn?" A harried female voice, middle-aged if he had to guess.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but there's been a gas leak discovered on your floor in your building and the super's had to evacuate for safety's sake until it's been fixed and inspected. Two days at least."

Arthur shifted the phone to cuss, his _damn_ and _sonuva_ \- catching Gwen's attention, along with fouler terms.

Probably the female on the phone heard a few, too. "Look, it was completely unexpected, according to routine maintenance it shouldn't have happened, but you're probably lucky the whole place didn't explode while you were sleeping, right?" she said wearily "And no, you won't be reimbursed for hotel or restaurant costs. Not in your contract. Anything else? 'Kay, have a nice weekend."

"What's wrong?" Gwen said, and he laid the phone down emphatically as he explained – this time without the profanity.

"I'll have to –"

Oh, wait. Bank account nearly empty. Paycheck to paycheck, Arthur lived on a beat-cop's salary, and the next one wouldn't come for five days and _oh_ he was responsible for Angel's accommodations, also. They couldn't both crash at Gwaine's place, it was a single-room studio smaller than Arthur's living area, sans kitchen and bedroom. He pushed his fingers into his hair, propping his forehead in his palm with his elbow on the table.

"I suppose I could ask my father…" he mumbled. For a loan – permission to move back in for a few days, plus one?

"No, you can't," Gwen said. "Not with Angel, anyway. That's the sort of thing that can sink the case – witness credibility, conflict of interest, favors accepted…"

Oh, yeah. One of the reasons he was probably not going to be allowed to work the case when he turned it over officially, after lunch. His level of involvement, already.

"But this time," she went on, sounding so pleased with herself that he looked up to meet her smile, "I _can_ offer you, my family's place. I was going to spend the weekend there anyway, my brother's there tonight but then not for a few days. My dad would be pleased to have you – to meet Angel – to help you help him."

He couldn't help the smile. Probably it was a bad idea for him to spend the night under the same roof as her – in pajamas across the breakfast table, warm and drowsy, her hair down… _Partners, dammit_ , he reminded himself. And he didn't know how he felt about Angel doing the same thing, if the street kid had a crush and Gwen thought him cute and talented and in need of – something. Mothering.

But he couldn't help the smile. "If you're sure…"

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

 _(Now)_

 _So at least I'm not boring you, or you would've said. Or… maybe I'm boring you to death?_

 _Okay, forget I said that. Only…_

 _I wish you would at least tell me. Too personal? Too girly? TMI?_

 _What if I told you something I know you're interested in? What if I answer one of your questions? You'd be sorry to sleep through that, wouldn't you?_

 _You wanna know, why Angel._

 _Well… The last person to use my real name was my mom._

 _The rest… all called me Angel. The girls all do, the girls who wear more makeup than clothes, girls from fourteen to forty – though all of us are eighteen, of course, but no one is stupid or rude enough to ask. The girls call me Angel, because no one tells their real name. It's Candy and Cherry and Misty and so on._

 _And Rosie._

 _Angel, they say. Be an angel and run to the corner store for me. The toilet's backed up again, there's an angel. Even that particular scream Angel! that means a mouse or a spider or a cockroach._

 _The fat man said it too, the one I call Fagin._

 _The first day he said it. You're right, he said to Jeff, who brought me into the house for the first time after the alley and the dumpster. You're right, he is an angel._

 _I remember him in the kitchen. Blur of yellows and browns and outdated orange, cracked linoleum and formica, plastic chairs that don't match and don't fit the fat man's ass spilling over the sides like his gut spill over the stretched-out waistband of his filthy blue striped boxers, ragged stained wife-beater undershirt. That's what you'd call irony. Wife-beater. And gray socks that climb up his ankles but don't hide ugly veins that bulge and twist like demented earthworms._

 _Anyway, he takes the wet chewed stub of his cigar – always he has a cigar – from stained teeth and squints through the bluey smoke. He looks me over, cap to shoes, in a way I didn't understand, then. Made me cold and shivery-hot and sick and scared._

 _Bet you never felt like that, some old fat guy looking at you when you were skinny and fourteen._

 _An angel, he said._

 _And Jeff goes, I know, right? He said, I thought we could branch out from just girls. They didn't say Jeff, y'know, they said it Spanish like Jefe. I never said that, it was kind of a little personal F-you…_

 _But I didn't really understand, then. I only heard, a place to sleep and something to eat. A little work in return. I didn't understand, work._

 _The fat man just grunted smoke. Get 'im cleaned up, he says to Jeff. And he says to me, Welcome home, Angel._

 _D'ya blame me I'm a bit cynical on the subject of home._

 _Though… y'know… my mom was the last to use my real name, but also… the first to call me Angel._

 _I remember, even though it's vague and gosh so innocent I can hardly believe._

 _When I was very small, she called me her angel._

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

The McLeod residence was a modest three-and-a-half bedroom. Townhouse, though, so more city than suburb – no yard, like she'd told him once. Master bedroom on the main floor, Gwen's and her brother's on the second. On the opposite side of the bathroom, there was a loft area that overlooked the compact living room, with enough room for a full-size couch against the back wall under a high window, and a sleeping-bag, to leave room still for a person to walk past to the open stairway.

No one was walking anymore, though. As late as it was.

Gwen and her brother had been silent behind the doors of their rooms for some time, and even the tv downstairs had flickered off after the nightly news. Neighborhood quiet for being as close to the city's center as they were, and one streetlight shed indirect light through the high narrow window over the loft-couch where Arthur sprawled – on his back, one arm crooked above his head, one over his stomach - trying to sleep.

It wasn't helping that Angel wasn't asleep either, in his sleeping bag on the floor. After a brief exchange of opinions concerning their hosts – the place, Gwen's father and brother, both firemen of high standards and few words, one retired and one exhausted from active duty, the dinner – silence had gathered, but not slumber.

Too much to think about, maybe.

Angel understood, he would venture to guess, why Arthur and Gwen weren't in charge of the case anymore, after their visit to the precinct this afternoon. He even seemed to be cheerfully resigned to the idea that he'd have to work with other detectives, other lawyers - assuming all went well and the intended arrests were made, he'd even have to face the defense lawyers.

Maybe Angel was just a night person.

"Arthur?" he breathed, out of the silence on the floor – low, so it wouldn't bother Arthur if he was sleeping, so he could pretend to be sleeping without giving offense. Polyester rustled as the boy shifted.

Arthur hummed acknowledgement only, not to encourage, or discourage.

"Can I ask you… would you tell me…"

Arthur sighed soundlessly. "What?"

A moment of silence followed, wherein Arthur began to anticipate everything that might go into Angel's next question. To do with Gwaine and his assignment with the feds, the case and the captain whom Angel had met mildly, Gwen and her family, Angus…

"What I told you about my mom… it was true."

 _Ah, back to that, are we._

"I saw her picture. Your mom, I mean. On your dad's desk, in his office? Picture of him and her on a boat or something."

Arthur wondered, with a poison-ivy kind of itchy curiosity, if Angel had tried to get under his father's skin with a comment or question about his mother. He couldn't imagine the old man being that calm and casual about Angel's chances in the courts, if the street boy had opened his mouth to verbally prod that wound.

"She was really pretty." Absolute sincerity. No streetwise sarcasm at all. "Will you tell me the truth? What happened to your mom?"

Arthur hesitated. They had no way of verifying Angel's tale of his own mother's illness and the negligent boyfriend, though he had no problem believing it was true. And they'd all of them together pulled truth after truth out of the boy all day long. Angus' death, other incidents that Jeff and Fagin – the nicknames stuck, at least in Arthur's mind – anything Angel could add to information on the players in Gwaine's DEA game.

But his father's words had stayed with him, too. What would happen when this necessary and unusual association was over?

It was a line Angel was asking him to cross, and Arthur didn't think the boy even realized it. And yet, he also felt, to remain on his side, professional and correct, might well be the worst mistake he'd ever make. And he had quite a few to compare.

"Brain aneurism," Arthur spoke quietly toward the ceiling, glowing faintly in the light from the uncovered window. "They said. Caused by this or that or the other, no one knew for sure. She just… collapsed one day. Right on the kitchen floor. They said it would have been over very quickly, only a second of pain if any, but… she was alone in the house. My father found her… but he wasn't home til late that night." Too late.

Another silence. It felt oddly companionable to him, like he somehow knew that Angel was thinking to compare them, each having lost his mother.

"And you?" Angel said.

"That was a year and a half ago. I was already on my own, in my apartment, on the force. They called me the next morning." His father's secretary, actually. And only now it occurred to him, that might have been because his father _couldn't_. Not because he wouldn't, or didn't care.

"A shock then." Angel's voice was a near-whisper. "Unexpected. No chance to say good-bye."

Arthur cleared his throat. In the stillness, there was no way to keep the street boy from noticing and guessing the reason Arthur needed to, but when he hummed a simple confirmation, it was steady and even. "Mm hm."

It wasn't going to help him sleep, that memory. Nor the ones that came next, of unraveling both personally and professionally. Before Ben had stepped in and offered a rough sort of suture. So unless he wanted to stare at the streetlight glow on the ceiling with stinging eyes until dawn – and be short-tempered as well as completely useless the next day – they might as well keep talking. Just, about something else.

"My turn," Arthur said. "What's your real name?"

 _Dead_ silence.

And he belatedly realized, to Angel that might have been the same sort of line-drawing question.

"If Angel's not good enough for you," the boy said, "you can choose another to use." He spoke lightly, as if he wished to avoid giving offense. But at the same time, tacitly declining to cross that line and join Arthur – and possibly intentionally setting more distance between them; there were definite hooker-ish overtones there.

"How about 'idiot'?" Arthur said, making it into a joke. "Would you answer to that?"

"If you're going to turn it into an insult, I'm going to have to think of one for you." Angel's voice held amusement. "And it won't be nearly so nice."

Arthur shuddered to think of the terms the street boy might come up with. "Just remember to watch your mouth around my partner," he warned him. " _She's_ a lady."

"And you worry she might start calling you by that name too?" Snicker, snicker.

"Ha, ha," Arthur said dryly.

Shuffling sound of sleeping bag material. A length of silence… Arthur began to contemplate options like counting sheep.

Then Angel said, "Hey. Have you ever… been in love?"

Holy cows, they were being personal tonight. "Oh, I don't know. I've done a good bit of dating, I guess. Never met any girl I wanted to stick around my whole life, though. Why? You?"

And hell. Why could he not remember who it was he was talking to? He'd already heard about Angel's young love Rosie – and had no desire whatsoever to hear him go on about having a crush on Arthur's partner. If Gwen was the link between the two topics.

"Once, maybe. It didn't work out." Arthur listened to Angel flop over and punch his pillow into shape. "But I think, when it comes to love, it should be _try, try again_ , don't you think?"

Arthur growled softly. "It's a helluva trick, knowing when you've succeeded."

"Maybe. But when you meet the one and she's amazing even when she's not perfect, and especially when you're not perfect… I think Gwen is the try, try again sort of person, don't you? Or maybe she's the succeeding sort…"

"How old are you, Angel?" Arthur said, a bit crossly. "Eighteen-going-on-eighty? Go to sleep now, you're making me sound like we're a pair of girls."

Angel slurred a syllable that conveyed, _All right_ , calmly, and without offense.

And Arthur turned over to face the back of the couch, perfectly aware of his partner sprawled comfortable and soft across her full-size bed, less than twenty feet away. Sweethearts and lost mothers. Damn, Angel.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

 _The last time we talked – well, I talked to you and you pretended to sleep. You're really listening and taking notes in there, aren't you. Aren't you? Arthur?_

 _Okay, well… it was worth a try._

 _Last time, I kinda left you when I just got to the house…_

 _I know you wondered. About me. Because of how everyone thinks, we all do, at some time or another. Get desperate enough for truly anything. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, right?..._

 _I told you how I didn't really understand, not at first._

 _Maybe I was stupid, or still too innocent, but for a little while all they told me to do was cleaning stuff. A couple of them tested me running errands, see if I'd come back, like training a puppy to fetch and retrieve. Make me scrub the bathroom. I didn't care, even if they laughed they were nice enough and I had the mattress in the basement and there was food in the kitchen. I didn't have to tell anyone I'm hungry, I just took it and no one really said anything. Except Candy, telling me she'd teach me how to cook for real, so I didn't have to live on chips and Coke._

 _I don't really remember much about the first time. Candy said I was going to meet a man who was going to pay me, and I was only supposed to listen and be polite and do what he told me. And I think she was sad, a bit – Candy was older, even though we were all eighteen, of course, and I wondered sometimes after that whether she'd ever had kids, or ever wanted them…_

 _Anyway, we turned up at a toilet of a motel room and the guy was nervous and kept swallowing and Candy left and shut the door and…_

 _I told you, remember, how sometimes it works out that I don't listen?_

 _You could laugh, here, Arthur, that would be all right…_

 _He wasn't a problem, that guy in the motel. Slapped me a couple times, shoved me, was all. He was mad, though, that I wouldn't listen, but he didn't try long before he gave up and yelled at Candy who was waiting outside. Candy wasn't mad, but she was even more sad… I think she was also too scared to tell me to run. Looking back, I mean. I didn't get that, then. That other people got scared of stuff._

 _Jeff was mad, too. But I don't remember being scared._

 _I remember waking up on the mattress in the basement, all tangled up and half off it like they'd kicked me down the stairs and this was where I'd landed. Or something. I remember the one lightbulb blinking, it reminded me of Morse code, y'know? SOS or some damn thing._

 _Candy was there, sitting next to me. I remember that. Leopard-print heels, the kind you could stab someone with and the point would come out their back. Leather skirt tight over her hips because it wasn't long enough to reach her thighs. Cigarette, of course. Always. And the red nails – the others did their nails too, like ten tiny shields or something, fire-engine red like Candy or black-and-white zebra stripe or even once a light lavender with tiny sparkly flowers that was horribly girlish and really the worst of all._

 _She puffed out her lungful and watched me fight gravity to get a little upright and I don't remember if I could tell what she was feeling, mad at me too or still sorry or what._

 _She said, I thought you were smarter than that, Angel. She said, It only makes it worse, if you fight._

 _I laughed. I remember that, even though I couldn't say why I thought that was funny. I remember it hurt my face and my ribs and all the bruises everywhere, all over again, and I remember thinking, that felt better than being touched. Even though it made her eyes go all squinty-suspicious and put tiny wrinkles in the makeup caked in the corners._

 _It took about a month, I think. Though I'm not sure they ever understood, because they believed that, it was worse if you fought. But they accepted it, after about a month. I'd work my ass off around the house, whatever chores needed doing, but that was it. The fat man wasn't happy and Jeff couldn't see me without hitting me – and usually following up with a good kicking, too – and they snarled about my name and no one laughed but me but they all accepted it._

 _That I was in control of me, and no one touched me._

 _Unless they wanted to finish it and kill me – and that's why Angel fits, too, because if you think about it I was dead already, long ago and far away – no one bought me and no one sold me._

 _I laughed and it confused Candy and it hurt but I was free, y'know, as long as I was in control._

 _I know you don't understand that, either. You're the type to throw the punches, and that's okay. You're pretty good at control, yourself, and I really don't mind that once. But if you can make the other guy lose his temper, lose his cool, lose control, then it doesn't matter what he does, because you still have control._

 _Jeff always lost control. I knew that about him, and I tried to warn you. I guess maybe that makes all this – the machines and the green lines and the damn beeping – my fault, maybe._

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

(Then)

Arthur woke to the soft but unmistakable sound of a zipper – that kept going and going. He groaned, feeling stiff and sore and headachy already, a dreadful sensation for first thing in the morning – and almost rolled over, just in time remembering he was sleeping on Gwen's dad's upstairs couch.

From under the wrist draped over his eyes, he listened to the quiet rustle of the sleeping bag Angel was obviously rolling up, and worked some spit around in his mouth to lubricate speech.

"Time is it?" he rasped.

"Early. Sorry, did I wake you?" Arthur grunted, and Angel added, "Elyan left a quarter-hour ago, and Mr. McLeod is moving around the kitchen, so… I'm getting up, anyway." The elastic ties securing the sleeping bag snapped into place – a floorboard creaked five feet away – and the bathroom door latched softly, leaving Arthur alone again in the loft.

He breathed deeply and thought about trying to go back to sleep… but it was no good. He'd gotten just enough so that he was no longer tired enough to fall asleep on a couch. Growling to himself, he untangled his body from the bedding he'd been given, and stood to try to fold it into some semblance of order.

"Penn, are you two up?" McLeod senior called softly from the main floor.

"Yessir," Arthur returned, shortly but politely.

"All right. Wake Gwennie, would you? She'd sleep all day if I let her, but my old knees don't like those stairs anymore. Tell her I want her in the kitchen?"

"Will do."

Arthur finished folding the last blanket methodically, nervous as a middle-schooler with a crush, himself. He couldn't want what he wanted, he shouldn't want what he wanted, and how would she react if she ever found out what he wanted?

Had he lied to Angel, last night, saying he'd never found a girl he wanted to be around on a permanent basis?

Her bedroom door, white-painted with a little calligraphy sign in sparkly red, _Gwennie_ , seemed the last slope of Mount Everest, the vault door of Fort Knox. He rapped one knuckle.

Waited. Rapped again.

Soft moan, that sent little shivers up his spine. Then, more clearly, and crossly – but still adorable, in his opinion - " _What_?"

"It's Arthur," he responded quietly, aware of Angel behind another closed door, at right angles to hers and barely an arms-length away. "Your father says –"

"Can't hear you, whoever it is," she interrupted, still little-girl petulant at being woken. "Just – open the door."

The knob was brass and a little loose, the jamb slightly swollen to hold the door in place. He shoved a bit, and it creaked.

Her room was softly lit, dawn coming through windows covered by lacy curtains and no blinds - blue-green, dark carpet and light walls and amazing shelves and books and glass figures. Her bureau was next to the door with a little tray for jewelry and another for hair-bands and oh gosh her bra was on the dressing-table just past, by the mirror so there were two and _black_ –

He pulled his eyes away, and found himself staring at her in bed.

On her stomach, with her face sleepy-scrunched and her eyes closed, her curly hair fanned luxuriously across her pillow behind her, gorgeous brown skin glowing against all-white sheets. White comforter pulled across her shoulder-blades, obscuring whatever she wore to bed except for a single light-colored strap as skinny as a necklace-chain.

His mouth was dry, and wouldn't work. His imagination did not have the same problem.

What would it be like to belong here? For the sight of her in the morning to be indisputably his – for her to welcome him to the vacant space next to her, claiming him in return? No embarrassment over looking and looking to their hearts' content, the playful assumption of touching and _touching_ and all it might lead to - to obey when she commanded, come back to bed.

More than that. That could be gotten temporarily with anyone, and relatively easy. He wanted – the sparkle of her eyes, in wit and in corrective anger. Her thoughtfulness and intelligence, whisking cobwebs from the corners of his mind and shining light on his ideas to make them brighter and clearer. He wanted her strength and compassion when the job got to be too much, when they lost a case or a companion, when the anniversary of his mother's death sat on his soul like a specter of regret.

He wanted to give her anything of him in return that she might need or value. He wanted to be… the one she wanted, too. However impossible that seemed.

Arthur thought of Leon Steele, resting comfortably after an honest day's work on his porch in his stocking feet with a beer at the end of the day, secure in the happiness of children watching cartoons and wife cooking to music. Able to join in and belong any time he wished. Anticipating any one of his family joining him, because they loved him and wanted to be with him.

His daydreaming moment ended when the bathroom door opened, revealing Angel dressed in Arthur's warm-ups and red long-sleeved shirt, hair damply disheveled and eyes bright and face scrubbed pink.

Arthur said brusquely into Gwen's room, "Your dad wants you in the kitchen."

Gwen groaned and burrowed her head under her pillow. Leaving black curls and warm shoulder-skin still showing.

"Bathroom," Angel offered Arthur.

He thought of his own worn pj pants and rumpled t-shirt and uncombed hair and baggy eyelids and morning breath. Moving from Gwen's doorway to the bathroom, he paused as Angel not only switched places with him, but continued on into Gwen's room as though he'd grown up in the house.

Arthur back-stepped to watch in astonishment as Angel – "Morning, Gwen!" – crawled right up beside her and flopped down in the empty half of the bed, limbs sprawled and head claiming the extra pillow.

Gwen mumbled something, moving her pillow and rolling to her side to face him. Away from the door. Whatever she said won a wide brilliant grin from Angel, one arm curled up around his appropriated pillow, one fist tucked under his chin like a child.

Arthur turned away and went into the bathroom.

 **A/N: I'm afraid that's it for me for about a week and a half, as I'll be traveling for the holidays. But I promise artwork and violence in the next chapter… *wink* Til then, Merry Christmas!**


	8. Fallen 2

**Part 4: Fallen** (cont.)

 _Angel crawled right up beside her and flopped down in the empty half of the bed, limbs sprawled and head claiming the extra pillow._

 _Gwen mumbled something, moving her pillow and rolling to her side to face him. Whatever she said won a wide brilliant grin from Angel, one arm curled up around his appropriated pillow, one fist tucked under his chin like a child._

 _Arthur turned away and went into the bathroom._

It was larger than most with plenty of room to move around; he and Angel had stashed their kit in here, rather than the more exposed loft area. He kicked his gym-bag into Angel's army rucksack, viciously and without satisfaction. Then he leaned on the sink to stare himself in the face. He didn't like what he saw; jealousy was hardly ever pretty, and he was too aware of his own faults to label it anything else.

 _He's wearing my clothes. And impressing my father. And falling into bed with my… partner._

Arthur told himself sternly, _Don't be stupid_. Angel owned two changes of clothes compared to Arthur's more-than-twenty, and a single morning's-worth of professional interaction didn't mean a thing when he remembered that Angel wouldn't ever even know who his father was. And Gwen…

Vigorously he scrubbed his skin clean, cold water harsh and clarifying. _You can afford to be generous_. Angel needed so much more than Arthur did, he felt more than a bit ashamed at begrudging him any of it.

As he turned to tuck his shaving kit back into the gym-bag, he saw that his earlier moment of pique had caused Angel's pack to topple. And because the boy had left the flap unbuckled and the drawstring loosened, the contents were spilling out on the bathroom linoleum.

The John-Deere's-Motors cap. A sleeve of the navy sweatshirt, another jersey-material garment he recognized by a partial glimpse of the logo, as the baseball-and-bat shirt he'd seen Angel wearing at the bridge. And a corner of cardboard that made him curious. Kneeling there on the fluffy green rug in front of the toilet, Arthur's fingers teased the cardboard into falling free of the rucksack.

Plain cardboard, worn soft around the edges, but thick and sturdy. Held to a second just like it – maybe nine inches by twelve, just larger than notebook paper – with packing tape and twine. Arthur yanked one end of the twine free and flipped one side of the cardboard pieces over like a book.

Oh. Oh, gosh. Angel had a _portfolio_.

Bits and pieces – tiny ragged-edged scraps of trash, torn book fly-leafs, school-lined paper, even neon-colored advertisement pages – that all bore drawings. Clearly with whatever writing utensil the boy could lay hands on. Discarded by someone else or lifted by him…

Parts of the city, parts of buildings, even solitary objects. Some Arthur recognized, some he didn't. Sketches of people – parts of people, from every angle, much like the one of Gwen's eyes. A wrinkled hand on a tousled head, a woman's silhouette from three-quarters behind. An intricately-tooled pair of cowboy-style boots.

A needle hidden in the bend of an arm, tendons standing out as the fist clenched, as other fingers depressed the syringe.

The duality of a mirror-image of swollen, crusted nose and mouth, swollen, crusted fingertips, as the original bent close to a reflective surface to inhale powder through a narrow straw.

A smear of bills in a hand, a tiny plastic bottle in an opposing one. And Arthur could read fear and need and suspicion and mistrust and shame, in the lines of both hands.

Incredible. And heart-breaking.

He found Ben. In other seasons, other settings, other expressions. He wondered if he might find Leon, or Candy, or –

One of _Arthur_. No, more than one. An entire page of taped scraps – his profile at the window of the car. A disorienting reverse-view of himself at the top of the bridge, staring back toward the artist on the far shore. A quick lines-only – but still recognizable – sketch of Arthur and Gwen in the meeting-room, Gwen perched casually on the tabletop, Arthur tense in the chair behind it, both focused so oddly on the viewer of the artwork. It made him shiver, as if someone had taken his picture right in front of him, and he'd never noticed. He'd wondered, that night, what Angel thought of them – and from this drawing, he still couldn't tell.

But it reminded him of where he was, and what he was doing. Too much longer in here, and there would be questions. He gathered up the loose papers to tie back into the street-kid's bound portfolio – and the edge of the last sheet stuck out.

Thick, expensive paper. Done in ink… a girl's face. Young girl, but there was deep maturity in her eyes. Haunting eyes. Her expression held at once defiance and longing. Sweet, yet sharp. The hair was a cloud of curls, sexy-casual… or maybe neglected-tangle, it was hard to tell. The picture showed head-and-shoulders, not enough of the garment or garments worn to see whether it might be the complicated neckline of a fine designer cocktail dress, or several random cast-offs.

It had to be Rosie.

Arthur gazed at it, at arms'-length, and found that an aching lump had grown in his throat, making it difficult to swallow. So much tragedy, such young lives… He believed his job did help to make things better for such people, but it wasn't often that he got to see long-term results. It was hard, sometimes, not to _wonder_.

He tucked the page back into the makeshift folio, and the whole packet back into the rucksack.

Exiting the bathroom, the impression of movement in his peripheral vision had him turning toward Gwen's room. She was halfway to the door in a pair of baby-blue cotton pants, zipping a hooded tan sweatshirt over a pale-cream tank – and her hair down her back, actually. Fluffy slippers in a violent pink-purple. And she looked _happy,_ glowing cheeks and dimple-wide smile.

Whatever she was saying, Arthur caught only, "You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"Why not?" Angel protested, his grin just as brilliant. Lounging on his back now atop her coverlet, he stretched, arms above his head.

Arthur reached past Gwen as she moved by him in the doorway, to pull the door shut behind her, closing the street kid in the room and giving the two of them a moment of privacy.

"What?" she said.

"You're not being careful," Arthur told her bluntly. "You're not being professional."

Her cheer dissipated rapidly, burned off by a defensive sort of disagreement. "What do you mean."

"Angel?" Arthur said. And though he tried to keep his tone even and dispassionate, he wasn't sure he succeeded. "In bed with you?"

The look she gave him was incredulous disgust. "You can't possibly think that I would let anything happen, like that?" she said.

"No, I mean, I trust you of course but you shouldn't encourage or mislead –"

She took a step toward him, her eyes – and every wild curly strand of her hair, or so it seemed – snapping with indignation. "I can't believe you just said that, Arthur Penn. First Lancelot, and now _Angel_? He's like a puppy, he's like my little brother, for heaven's sake."

"And you deserve to be happy –" Arthur tried to backpedal the offense without losing the point he was trying to make – "and if it's with him, or Lancelot, then that's fine, but right now –"

She took another step, actually lifting onto her toes to get in his face, and he leaned away. "You don't have the first clue about what Angel wants, or what I want, so. Back. The hell. Off."

And she was past him, thudding down the stairs in her fluffy pink-purple slippers.

 _Dammit. Open mouth, insert foot._

The bedroom door opened again, as Arthur retreated to the couch to put his running shoes on in preparation for the day, and Angel emerged. "Everything okay?"

Arthur grunted, yanking viciously on the worn laces, and Angel turned the bathroom light on to rummage for something, presumably in his pack, continuing a sort of to-himself chatter.

"What do you s'pose is for breakfast? Something good, right? 'Cause dinner was good, Mr. McLeod is a good cook, isn't he, though usually guys aren't, but…"

Silence so sudden it nudged Arthur from his thoughts – whether to try to explain or apologize to Gwen, or just leave it alone – and he stood as Angel came from the bathroom, his pack clutched in both arms against his chest. The look on his face was… odd. Tight, almost angry around the eyes, but the mouth was twisted in a sarcastic grin.

"Never been in love, huh?" he said, not loudly, but clearly, as he dropped the ruck in a controlled thump at the side of the couch. Then straightened to face Arthur, hands at his sides. "Ever thought about try-trying again with her?" He nodded to the open door of Gwen's empty room. "Ever, ever? Come on, tell the truth and shame the devil."

"Shut up," Arthur said shortly, crossing the loft area to grip the safety rail and gaze down into the empty family-room below.

"Oh, but she'd be worth it," Angel said persuasively, stepping slowly closer. One foot, then the other. Still so sarcastic. "Soft and warm and the way she smells –" he hissed on a provocative inhalation. "Like cinnamon rolls with orange icing."

Arthur didn't turn his back completely, but shifted away, gripping the rail. And Angel was right at his ear.

"Think you'd be her first? Think she's ever been with another guy? Maybe a lot of them? Think she'd be tight and hot and sweet and yours forever – or maybe you could still _taste_ the last guy she –"

Angel didn't get any further. Arthur didn't let him get any further.

He could only think of Gwennie's kindness, from the very first. _He deserves better… he's like my little brother._ He could only think how hurt she'd be if she heard the words pouring like poison from Angel's mouth – and she would, if she came back, and he didn't shut up. Especially considering Arthur was familiar enough with her to know, she was unusually circumspect about her love life. She didn't deserve this, she deserved protection and championship, as long as she wasn't there to defend herself, as she was fully capable of doing.

But Arthur wasn't good with words.

Or with keeping his temper.

Strength and anger drove his swing, a full-bodied crouch-and-twist roundhouse – though not aimed to break nose or teeth or jaw. Just to shut him up.

Angel's head snapped back. He rocked on his heels, tipped over all the way to his elbows with an ominous tumble-thud on the carpet of the loft floor. It took him an obvious dizzy second to regain his sense of balance, even lying on the floor, and there was blood on his face when he met Arthur's eyes, a tiny diagonal trickle from his nose.

Shame flushed the anger completely and instantly from Arthur's body, and a sort of nauseated self-loathing flooded into him in its place. And enormous disappointment, in both of them.

 _So he won. He found your weakness, and you let him manipulate your emotions like Play Doh. You let him in, and he ambushed you._

It was worse, being taken by surprise at this point, because he would have said he and Angel were past this sort of test. So, either the progress they'd made was entirely feigned, or it was something Angel was willing to throw away on a whim.

 _He played you. From the beginning. Like a damn harp._

"You bastard," he said to the bleeding boy on the floor, in a calm sort of agony.

But the look on Angel's face was not the satisfied triumph he'd worn at Gwaine's show of violence the previous noon. It wasn't impish mockery or self-righteous affront. It was the same guilt and shame and too-late realization of what he'd done, that Arthur himself felt. It was the stark knowledge of how Arthur felt about Gwennie McLeod.

Whose feet sounded on the stair, and as she reached the last few steps, she started to say, "What is –"

Arthur turned to the head of the stair, capturing her attention as he passed her in the narrow space, and paused. "I'm so sorry," he said to her, in a low, thick voice. "Gwennie, I'm so –"

He couldn't say any more. His heart was thundering in his chest and ears, his face burning. One of them might've said his name, but he had plenty of momentum, going down the stairs, and ignored the voices, stalking across the living room and out the front door.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

 _(Now)_

 _They've said it's mostly over. You should know that – though of course I'm not the first one to hear it, or the first one to say it to you. I think there's just one of the guys that was there that night, they haven't caught yet. But Gwaine says it's only a matter of time, and even though it seems like he's always confident, he's pretty confident about this. His job went well, too, I think one of the feds might be just down the hall, but he's okay. Talking and eating jello and stuff._

 _It's early morning, right now. Dawn. You can't see because your room doesn't have windows. Because you can't see…_

 _Dammit, how long? How long… how… agh. Fine. In your own time._

 _While I'm waiting – or, well, while we're both waiting – d'you wanna hear something funny? Okay, I know something that'll make you laugh._

 _I tried to talk them out of it._

 _Jeff and the others, that night, I mean. I tried to talk them out of it, before you got there._

 _Arthur? Not so much as a chuckle? C'mon…_

 _I did, though. I told them they were stupid for trying to kill another cop… I tried to make them kill me instead. I mean, I think I did. They weren't exactly letting me do much talking. But they weren't killing me, either. I said, I'm the witness just kill me, they don't have a case without me. I mean, they still don't. Still it's all down to my testimony, basically, until you wake up…_

 _The big one laughed. After. The big one who held you down? He laughed as they were all leaving – in a hurry, obviously, damn them – and told me, better run if you can, the sirens are coming._

 _They weren't, though. Not til I got your phone from your pocket, and then it seemed like it took them forever…_

 _Okay. Agh. Sorry about that. I'm running your room right out of tissues today._

 _Let's talk about something else…_

 _The other day, I started to tell you how I met Angus, remember? And I didn't even get to that part, and you didn't even say._

 _Arthur?_

 _Okay, then… Where to start. At the beginning, I suppose – at least of that day._

 _I used to love morning, y'know. It always seemed a quiet, pure time… golden. When the sun's up, but no one else. The sun and me, and sometimes Rosie._

 _If she was awake, she'd leave her door part-open in case I came past, and I'd stop in the doorway to talk a bit. She was a morning person, no matter what she'd done and where she'd been and who she'd been with during the night. She always scrubbed her face clean and put her hair in two braids after she washed it and she looked like a little girl in some happy family and her eyes were bright when she smiled, not clouded by the… well, you know._

 _Not that last morning, though. When I found her._

 _Maybe it doesn't count as the last morning, though. I don't know if she lasted that long._

 _I could see from the door that she hadn't washed her face, and I knew right then, I think. I knew something was wrong, anyway. Dark makeup smeared on her pale skin, and her eyes were open but… clouded forever. Her legs were bare, tangled in the sheets. And I never actually went inside the room before._

 _She's dead, Jeff said from behind me._

 _And I'd've killed him right there, turned around and tackled him down and never let him up until he was dead… probably I shouldn't be telling you this, but I suppose it doesn't matter now. I didn't, because I thought he's probably expecting that, and he'd kill me unless I really took him by surprise, and I don't think anyone ever really did. And then we'd both be dead and he would have won, and…_

 _He said, Take care of it, Angel. That's your job, after all. Take out the trash._

 _That… wasn't even my first arrest. Not my last, either, of course you know that. I remember sitting there in the alley behind the hospital – I mean, I knew they couldn't help her I was too late but I just ended up there and… couldn't leave. Couldn't leave her. Y'know._

 _I remember I couldn't stop moving, just rocking her in my lap and rubbing the comforter in my fingers, maybe because she was so still. So… awfully… still. Maybe I was talking to her, too, I don't know. Sitting in the puddles of rainwater and worse, all broken glass and pigeon shit._

 _There was feet, I remember, running and stopping and circling us and passing and shifting, and I think I told them it was my fault. Probably that was why I was arrested, actually, come to think of it._

 _Then. There was someone completely different. Did you think that about him, too? That he was so different from everyone else. He was the only one to get down next to us, to really look at us._

 _He could've been someone's grandpa._

 _Why don't you come with me, he said. He said, Don't worry, we'll take care of her. Let her go, let them take her, take care of her. They'll be careful, they'll be gentle… He said, What was her name. He said, what's yours._

 _Just call me Angel. Like the song._

 _I wish I'd told Angus the truth._

 _Y'know, the doctors said, theoretically – they did actually say that word, theoretically – you could wake up anytime. So…_

 _Could you please prove them right?_

 _Sometime soon?_

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Blindly Arthur walked, temples – and knuckles – throbbing. Cussing himself out with every name in the book, and then some. As if the harshest, longest self-scolding possible were punishment enough for what he'd done. As if anything ever could clear the sticky clingy web of shame from his soul.

 _This is the sort of man I am. Pretty, ain't I?_ he mocked Angel's words to himself.

Time, which is said to heal all wounds, passed. He didn't dissolve to a little puddle of scummy pothole water. Didn't spontaneously combust. Didn't sprout horns and fangs and a forked tail.

 _What made you think you were special?_ he asked himself. _You're not. You're just like all the rest. Face it, and deal with it._

He lifted his head, and realized he wasn't sure where he was. No phone, no keys, no back-up pistol. A few dollars in his back pocket. He kicked his way along a downtown sidewalk, apartments stacked above shoulder-to-shoulder shops, and headed for a corner of greenery he thought might be the park.

East entrance, was where Ben met Angel one snowy day, and Arthur had been too impatient to really take note. Not too far from Johns Motors. Gwen's father's townhouse, as it turned out, was at the far northwest corner, distant by a dozen blocks, but it would be enough for Arthur to get his bearings.

Decide if he wanted to head back that to face Gwennie's ire and Angel's – complication. Or avoid it another hour or so.

The park was oddly shaped, due to the peculiar topography of the city's bedrock and the changes wrought by the river meandering through. Easier to let the wild grow in this spot than to try to level and stabilize the ground for useful building. Even the paths and landscaping were of the flexible gravel-and-wood-chip type, rather than concrete.

Scuffing his way along the edge, hands jammed in his pockets and chilly without a jacket, now that he was thinking outside of himself, his attention was caught by the glimpse of a distant foot-bridge spanning a small tributary of the river. Glancing up and down the street for safety's sake, he jaywalked and made his way to the bridge. This late in the season, nothing was blooming and plenty was dying, except the prickly evergreen choking the stream's gorge, and he thought it suited his gloomy mood just fine. There was no one else in sight.

He walked halfway over the bridge, to the highest point of the mild curve, then climbed the chest-high railing to sit slumped over his knees, staring down the twenty-foot drop into the rocky stream-dampened ravine. Tormenting himself with comparisons to the creeps on the opposite side – the wrong side – of the law.

Until the fresh air, and the diffuse sunlight filtered through the high thin clouds of autumn, and the sound of distant city traffic and closer falling brook got to him, and he gave himself a sardonic grin.

 _Now who's making a girl out of you? Man up and go back for that whole plateful of humble pie you deserve._

His stomach growled – he remembered he hadn't eaten breakfast – and he snorted, kicking one leg, then the other to the inside of the bridge to jump down on the weathered planks.

"Arthur?" Angel stood twelve feet away, almost to the bridge, as if he'd halted in his approach at Arthur's movement. He wore the navy sweatshirt over Arthur's red shirt, but the pack was absent. For a moment Arthur stared at the street kid. At the reddened mark on his face that would bruise later, at the wary expression in his eyes.

He gave a bitter laugh, holding out open hands. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm not going to hit you again."

"No, I just…" Angel moved forward onto the bridge, almost to the point where he might be said to join Arthur. "I thought for a minute there, you were going to tell me to call you Officer Penn."

It hadn't even crossed his mind. Even though their level of familiarity meant the earlier altercation hurt more than it would have with a stranger – to either of them – he wasn't going to be a jerk _and_ an ass, compounding his mistake by retreating into protocol and distant professionalism, denying any blame. He opened his mouth, trying to figure out a sufficient apology.

"I'm sorry," Angel said, venturing a couple more steps. Shoving his hands into the sweatshirt pockets, he leaned one shoulder against the highest bridge-rail. "I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have said those things."

"No, I owe you the apology," Arthur corrected, frowning a bit. "I shouldn't have lost my temper."

"You looked at my pictures," Angel said, holding his gaze.

Arthur had the sense that the boy – just as much as him – was trying to feel his way forward. Figure out if Arthur was still doing the same, or if he'd discarded any thought of furthering familiarity. It was the first step of true friendship, in Arthur's opinion. Forgiveness after a fight, instead of retreat into permanent grudge.

Did he want to be _friends_ with this boy? It implied future association, past the case and the trial and all. Responsibilities and commitments…

He did know, that he didn't want to close the door on the possibility.

"In the bathroom," Arthur said, to clarify. Determined to be honest. "Yeah, I did. I knocked your pack over, and when I went to pick it up, your folio was half out. I was curious, but I should have asked first."

"You're a cop, and cops snoop, I get that." Angel shrugged uncomfortably. "I thought, maybe you were looking to see if I was hiding drugs, and then just… I mean, I never showed all those even to Angus."

Invasion of privacy. And probably that meant so much more to someone like Angel, who'd had very little for a very long time, and next to no chance of protecting it from someone determined or violent enough. It probably felt to Angel like Arthur had taken advantage of their little bit of gained trust. For someone who could keep nothing, this was probably Angel's way of keeping – and Arthur had taken something of that from him.

"I'm sorry," Arthur said. "I didn't stop to think. And I shouldn't have done that, and –" and now he knew why Angel had chosen to push back verbally, create more space between them, to protect himself. "I shouldn't have gotten angry enough to hurt you."

"Me, neither." Angel rubbed his shoulder along the metal horizontal rail, just to arms-length. "You know I didn't mean all that. About Gwen. I know you like her – I've seen the way you look at her, and I know that she…" He paused with a sheepish grin as Arthur raised an eyebrow warning him to _drop it_. "Other guys, they react to defend their own pride. Ego, you know. But you – what you did wasn't for you, it was for her. And I respect that – and I'm sorry I pushed you to it. I thought – well, I was afraid you might hate me, now."

Arthur nearly laughed, though it would have been more ironic than mirthful. Here he was thinking what a shambles he'd made of the situation, and come to find out, it was quite the opposite.

"I forgive you, you forgive me," he said. "And we won't try this again… are we good, then?"

Angel's smile was brilliant, at once youthful and confident. Relieved. "We're good."

"Is there any breakfast left?" Arthur asked, turning the boy with a grip of his sweatshirt at the shoulder. "I was steeling myself for the taste of humble pie."

Angel laughed again, tossing his head back, as he turned to saunter back down the arc of the bridge. Then pulled his hand from his pocket with Arthur's phone in it. "Oh, I forgot – this has been ringing since you left. Gwen told me to take this with me – she was going to tell you if you got back to the house before I did."

Two missed calls from the same number, then a voicemail from his captain.

 _Answer your damn phone, Penn, even on your day off! I've been trying to reach you – case developments, call me a-sap!_

"Half a sec," Arthur told Angel, who obligingly waited, two steps further on the bridge, and turning back toward the park to give him some privacy. Arthur keyed for the captain's desk phone. "Cap, it's Penn, what's up?"

"What's up? Where are you? And your witness? I talked to McLeod half an hour ago, she said she didn't know where either of you were!"

"Just went for a walk to clear the air," Arthur defended vaguely. "Why? Something happened?"

"We got a report in that someone tampered with the gas lines of a certain apartment complex downtown. Maybe just random criminal destruction of property, but the repairmen reported it was definitely deliberate rather than accidental damage to the super, who called it in to us. Almost the whole top floor lethal to anyone trying to breathe up there, if a spark didn't set it off. Nothing on the security cams and no prints, but we ran checks on the building's inhabitants and –"

"Wait a minute," Arthur interrupted, feeling a hollow in his belly that had nothing to do with hunger. "You're talking about _my_ building? That gas leak was caused deliberately?"

Angel stiffened, but didn't turn to face Arthur.

"Yeah! Aren't you listening? yeah. No red flags on anybody else and we're checking the super's history more closely, but it's an even bet, at least, that you and maybe your Angel were the targets."

Suicide. Accident.

"Do you want us to come in? Work the case?"

"No! Dammit! No, I just wanted to give you the heads-up. Be careful. Be smart, til Darney and Leyson can make those collars."

"Yeah," Arthur said, still not happy about that; Darney and Leyson were the pair put on Ben Angus' murder case, officially. And now it seemed they'd have to leave Gwen's father's house, then, but where – "Cap! D'ya think this is enough for the precinct to spring for one of the safe hou-"

"Oh, _shit_!" Angel said, spinning. And lunged for Arthur.

Taken by surprise – and the boy's bony shoulder in the pit of his stomach – Arthur went down hard.

No time to catch himself, brace himself, Angel's weight bearing him all the way to his back on the bridge, but at least his head didn't hit. His breath whooshed out of his lungs so decisively and completely they forgot how to work for a moment; vaguely he was aware of his phone bouncing from his hand and skittering several feet along the worn planks of the bridge.

Angel's eyes were about six inches from his, bright and wide with panic, as –

 _Crack!_

There were other things that could make that sound, Arthur knew. A car backfiring, the sharp slap of the broad side of a board on another hard surface. But his brain said, _gunshot_.

Angel cringed, huddling over Arthur's body, trying to protect both their heads with his arms, and Arthur wondered at his fear _now_ , considering his history.

Arthur rolled to dump him. "Get off me!" he hissed. "Did you see where they were?"

The boy fought him, trying to shove him closer to the base of the foot-bridge's protective wall. "They're out the way I came from!" he gasped. "Jeff for sure, and two others!"

 _Spang_! They both flinched as a round clipped the bottom edge of the first rail above them.

"Stay down!" Arthur spat.

 _It's broad daylight, someone will see them, what are they doing?_ his rational mind screamed, as he twisted to gauge the risk of scrabbling into the open for his phone. _Someone brave and sure enough to identify them? Catch them? Prove it in a court of law and get a jury to convict?_ practicality hollered back. _They're obviously willing to take the risk, and we'll be just as dead!_

How long did they have? He calculated instantly – Jeff wouldn't have tried to get too close, knowing they'd recognize him, _not_ knowing if Arthur was carrying concealed. They'd be wary a few moments, yet, til they were sure he _wasn't_ going to return fire…

But they'd have to come fast before someone called in a 10-71 and other officers responded, and make sure to kill both of them now.

Seconds only, had passed.

"When I say go," Arthur said, down to the boy who lay tangled with him like a tense, fearful lover, "you head that way. Back down the bridge, staying close to the side, and then you go over and down the gulley to hide. Fast, and keep your head down. Got it?"

"What about you?" Angel said.

"I'll get my phone and meet you," Arthur said. "Set – go!"

Angel whimpered, and _scrambled_.

Arthur flung himself sprawling over the bridge-boards for the phone, pushing off the base of the safety rails with one foot – then rolling back to that minimal cover, phone gripped in hand. Two more shots – he felt nothing, heard no outcry from Angel.

"Captain!" he bellowed, in case the call was still active. "Park bridge! Shots fired! 10-33!"

His breath ricocheted from the planks back into his face as Arthur low-crawled over the apex of the bridge, bruising all his joints, elbows hips and knees. The proximity of the shouts discouraged him from risking anything higher than that, and he took a breath before flinging himself over the lowest rail.

Three shots, more shouting – Angel cried, "Arthur!"

It was a four- or five-foot drop to a steep rocky incline. More bruises, and a dangerously-fast slide toward the deeper middle part, and _dark down here_. He dug in his heels and scrabbled with one hand – careful of his phone – and gathered more scrapes all up his back, as his involuntary, gravity-drawn movement slowed.

It made him think of Angel's physical decorations, and he glanced up and over to see the street boy huddled up at the opposite end of the bridge, right up underneath the first few boards. Brilliant, maybe – they wouldn't see him unless they hung head-down all the way over the side – but if they _heard_ him… Arthur wondered if a bullet would go through the planks.

He braced himself with his feet, earth and rock, and held a finger to his lips to signal Angel to quiet, willing the pattering debris to stillness also. Angel nodded, eyes wide in the gloom, tucking his long legs up to his body with exaggeratedly silent care.

Arthur wedged himself into a vertical crevice and turned his face away. A gamble – if they looked over the side where he'd tumbled, they might not see him at all. If they looked over the other –

Down at his side, he checked his phone – the call to the precinct had cut off. Carefully he keyed a text message – to Gwen who'd be waiting for his or Angel's return. Or a call. Answer and relay faster than anyone else.

 **SOS. Shootng. Prk brdge.**

Footfalls scuffed closer – echoed hollowly on the wood of the bridge, slowing. Angel cringed, literally inches from the feet of the men who wanted to kill him. Arthur held the mute on his phone and readied himself for the possibility that one at least would venture over the side. He'd have to attack first, claim or deflect a weapon, take the guy tumbling down the ravine and hope the other was the worse hurt.

"Didja see where the little bastard went?"

"Along the side, I think, back under those pines there… I don't see him? You want me to try to follow, flush him out?" Pause.

"What about the pig? He didn't shoot back…"

Silence.

Angel leaned forward, intent now as well as intimidated, as if he'd leap out to divert attention. Arthur didn't dare move a muscle, even to wave him off his suicide notion.

"I don't think he saw us."

"Angel did."

Again, silence.

"The only one who believed him… is dead. Check over the side."

Shuffling, scraping – Arthur tensed, but didn't move even to look – _sirens_. In the distance, but… nearing. _No_ sound from above.

Then, "Can't see them – let's go."

"I want 'em dead, boys, dead! Not just scared off!"

"We'll try again, Jefe, how about."

"We tried once at his place, and see how well _that_ turned out!"

"Come on, they're coming. Come on! Just walk away for now, Jefe – we'll get 'em another time."

The footsteps started up again, hurrying now overhead, over Arthur, and past. He held his breath, listening, _listening_. Still sirens, distant shouts, but somehow not of the threatening kind.

"You all right?" Angel hissed.

Carefully Arthur extricated himself from the crevice, more aware now of the deep dark drop in the middle, the water running over rocks far below – now that the human danger was past, he did not want to accidentally fall.

"Yeah – you?" he returned, craning a somewhat stiff neck to look up the bank behind him to both sides, to make sure Jefe and his boys weren't waiting to take one last shot. The trees and bushes were mostly of the evergreen variety; he couldn't see far, but the coast was clear.

He shifted, trying to about-face for an easier climb back up – and one of the rocks his heel thought firm, gave way. Precipitating his slide down again.

Arthur clutched his phone and scrabbled to stop, prepared now to wait in place for rescue, no matter how embarrassing, but – nope, wasn't going to happen. Then he thought of launching himself away from his side, over the deep crack to Angel's side, if the ground was better, more stable – more hand- and foot-holds –

Angel unfolded from his nook under the edge of the bridge, slithering quickly and deliberately forward – worried but determined – one hand out.

Nothing needed to be said.

Arthur gauged distance, sought outcroppings, calculated his weight and trajectory, Angel's strength – and in an instant, drew up one knee and kicked himself away from the more treacherous slope.

They fumbled – they caught, fingers around each other's wrists. Arthur jammed his elbow and his toes into cracks and hung for a moment, panting but stable.

"I got you!" Angel gasped breathlessly. "I got you. I think help is coming –" the shouts were getting closer, almost recognizable as Arthur's name, at least – "d'ya wanna try and –"

Arthur's phone chirped in his hand. He coughed a laugh, gripping the device that prevented the use of his other hand climbing – and thumbed to answer the call. "Gwennie," he said.

And continued, over her, "Arthur! I was so worried! Where are you? Are you okay? Is Angel with you?"

"Can I call you back? We're under the bridge, we've got to climb back up."

"Damn, you're heavy," Angel groaned. He pulled two-handed on Arthur's wrist now, as Arthur pushed his weight up with his toes, looking for another ledge that would bring him up to safe ground beside his friend. "I think you oughta _skip_ that breakfast."

Arthur growled, "Shut up, Angel."

And the boy laughed, laying right back in the rock and earth and moss and root – holding tight to Arthur's hand until he was safe and there was no further danger of falling.

* * *

 _You can try to keep me down, you can try to keep me under  
But you'll never get my will, you'll never take my will to fight…  
'Cause I was born at the bottom of this mountain  
I'm scared and I'll probably climb it  
Climb it till the day I die…_

 _All the things I know I needed, just keeps me going  
All the things I never had, just keeps me wanting it more  
Fighting for it all…_

 _I know I'm not that pretty, I'm only avid smart  
With an overwhelming uncanny need just to need to survive  
But you can dig a grave six feet under  
But you'll have to take me up  
'Cause you know I won't be going high_

 _All the things I know I needed, just keeps me searching  
All the things I never had, just keeps me wanting it more  
Fighting for it all…_

 _I never had a hero…  
Never met a saint…  
And there's nothing on this earth I can take with me anyway_

 _So, you can try to keep me down, you can try to keep me under  
But you'll never get my will  
You'll never take my will to fight…_

" _Fighting for it All" ~ Mindy Smith_

* * *

 **A/N: So, artwork and violence, like I promised! Show of hands – who expected Arthur to actually hit Angel, and who thought they were going to avoid that altogether? :D**

 **I should also say, there are several different versions of those police-codes. But 10-71 is something like, a citizen called to report hearing the gunfire. And the 10-33 is something like, officer needs assistance** _ **immediately**_ **.**


	9. Warrior 1

**A/N: First of all, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond. Is anyone else having this issue? By the # count, I know I received reviews, but the actual page** _ **would not**_ **update. And the reviews I left on other stories did not show up there either, or in my history… I did send a notice to the support email, but… geez-oh-frickin-pete. Anyway, I decided even though I had to wait on pins and frustrated needles for when (if? oh, say it isn't so!) the problem is corrected, I shouldn't make you wait for the next chapter… even though I have no idea how the last one was received, or even if I'll be able to see the comments for this chapter… please leave them all the same, and hope with me that this gets fixed! Thanks!**

 **Also I should say, this is the penultimate chapter…**

 **Part 5: Warrior**

(Then)

Preliminary statements were made to first responders. Identifying himself and Angel – insofar as he was able – identifying their attackers, describing the incident.

No, neither of them needed immediate medical attention – what few trickles of blood Arthur had felt beneath his shirt had already dried – but yes, they'd accompany officers immediately to the precinct to sign a written statement. Arthur figured they were probably safest in custody.

Angel minded his manners, though it might have been because he was too shaken up to really display his sarcastic tendencies before a veritable crowd of stranger cops.

Gwen showed up in Arthur's car, dressed in jeans and her purple jacket and a frown, her hair pulled back behind her neck. "I can drive you to the precinct," she offered upon joining them, and the officer in charge nodded agreement. Over her shoulder as they headed for the car parked at the curb just outside the part, she added to the two of them, "That way, when you're through –"

"No offense," Arthur said wearily, "but I don't think we're coming back to your dad's house." He was tired and – hungry still, dammit. And it was noon – the sun as high in the sky as it got, this time of year.

"Why not," Gwen said, a bit coolly. She'd been eyeing them both since she arrived, as if gauging the standing of their association. Or maybe she didn't quite believe they were both fine.

Arthur wondered what Angel had told her. The boy said nothing at the moment, but tagged close behind, as if determined to be included in the conversation, learn whatever information passed between them.

"The thing at my apartment," he said. "Captain told you?"

She nodded, and Angel interjected, blue eyes sharp, "It was them, wasn't it? Jeff? Tried to – kill you, or hurt you?"

"Us both," Arthur corrected him.

They reached the car, and Gwen headed for the driver's seat without asking, his keys in her hand; he didn't protest, easing his aching body into the shotgun seat with a brief twinge of regret for filthy, bloody clothing on his seats. Angel slid into the back, immediately to the middle, and leaned forward.

"They know who I am," Arthur added, as Gwen started the engine and checked traffic. "And that I'm helping Angel." Maybe they'd suspected that staged-arrest in the alley behind Johns Motors, after all.

"You think they know where my father lives?" Gwen said, not looking at him as she pulled out on the street, turning the car in the direction of their precinct. "That you guys were staying there? Why not just arrange a drive-by, then?" Her tone was mostly sarcastic on that suggestion, but he knew what she meant.

He shook his head. "I think they're smarter than that," he admitted reluctantly. "Two cops, one a female, and two firemen? The whole city would be up in arms, hunting them down. I'm sure you'll be fine with your dad and brother, but it's probably safer if we go somewhere else, at least until Jeff and his goons are caught."

"Where, do you think?" Gwen said. "Back to your place?"

"No…" Arthur said, thinking. It would be too easy for someone to get in there and wait around a corner with a long knife, unseen and escaping the same way. He glanced over his shoulder, wondering if the same thoughts had occurred to Angel. The boy was hunched over his knees, hugging his chest; he pinched his lower lip as he frowned at his feet. "Gwaine's, maybe."

Gwen rolled her eyes but kept them focused on the road ahead; she'd seen Gwaine's tiny studio apartment. "If they expected you to stay with your current partner's family, it may be that they could find out about your ex-partner," she pointed out, more mildly. "We could ask the captain about that safe house, though, now."

Arthur resisted being the one to need it. Staying to guard Angel in a place like that was one thing, when he'd be the one enforcing the rules of secrecy and isolation, but… "I think I'm still all right to work my shifts," he said. "Though if you want to split, I'll understand." She took one hand from the wheel to punch his shoulder without looking, and he half-snickered, half-winced. "I suppose it would be fine for Angel, though."

"Stuck in a tiny apartment with a pig who isn't either of you?" Angel said, but expressionlessly. "No, thanks."

And, Arthur thought without resentment, the street kid could make the whole thing very unpleasant very quickly, if they tried to make him do something he didn't want to do. Gwen glanced at him in the rearview, before returning her attention to her driving. A moment later, she glanced at Arthur, her jaw set as if anticipating his argument.

"What?" he said.

"Well, what about –"

"How did they know?" Angel interrupted, leaning on his elbows over the center console, so he was very nearly between them, in the front seat. He met Arthur's gaze with a piercing blue stare from under the shaggy black hair tumbling over his forehead. "They were at Johns Motors Wednesday night. And then at your place, two days later. And then this, not even twenty-four hours since we decided to go to the McLeods'. I mean, maybe it's like you said, they're smart. You said, it wasn't that hard for a stranger to find me, but – how _did_ you find me? And d'you really think they saw right through you arresting me, so fast?"

Arthur, who probably understood how Angel thought a little better than Gwen did, was going to brush the _how_ off as unimportant if they could avoid trouble long enough for the arrest warrants to be successfully served.

But Gwen, who was maybe also distracted from Angel's thought patterns by her driving, said, "We talked to your friend Candy."

Angel straightened in alarm, and Arthur winced, remembering how he'd hoped the middle-aged prostitute had not given them away, voluntarily or not.

"She knew," Angel said. "Where I'd be on a Wednesday. She knew you two were looking for me, and… believed me. What if –" Color drained from his face, into the same deep black hollow that showed in his eyes. "She wouldn't have just _told_ them, if she knew they wanted to kill me, they would've had to _make_ her –"

"We don't know that," Arthur said quickly. "They could've heard every word I said to you in the alley. My name and badge on my uniform when I talked to Jeff. Honestly, they could have followed us that night, the whole next day. Surveillance is difficult to keep secret long-term, but it's only been a few days, and I have to admit, I haven't been watching for a tail."

"Yeah, but Arthur –" Angel reached forward, taking a pinch of Arthur's sleeve in his anxiety. "She lives with them. What if – we have to – I have to find out if she's okay. If anything happened."

"No, you don't," Arthur reassured him. "After this attempted homicide of a police officer – they're going to have eyes on the brick house round the clock. We'll just have them let us know when someone sees Candy, that she's okay."

"Promise?" Angel said uncertainly.

"Yeah, I promise."

They were a block from the precinct now, and Arthur tried to steel himself for the marathon ahead. The written statement, the rounds of questions – okay, let's start from the beginning again, how many times had he said that himself – the _waiting_ , while other people made decisions. Then again, the paperwork would be up to someone else, and he could request food, and maybe Gwen would be the one to bring in the first-aid kit and there were showers and a change of clothes in his locker…

"But what are you going to do after all this?" Gwen said softly, pulling into the parking lot and finding a space. She shifted into park, but kept her gaze on the building. "Tonight?"

"I don't know. Worse comes to worst, we can crash on a couple of cots in one of the private rooms."

Gwen gave him a sympathetic grimace, then. "I have a different idea?"

He sighed. "Why do I feel like you think I'm not going to like it?"

She reached into her jacket pocket and took out a torn corner of the page of a yellow legal pad. There was a phone number on it, and a short scrawled note.

 _Anytime you need anything, please give me a call. ~Lancelot_

"He probably meant personally," Arthur said, trying unsuccessfully to tone down the sarcasm. _Pardon the hell outta me, but it's been a long day already, and it's only half over._

"At least he could put Angel up for a few days," she said tartly, "in better accommodations than a cot in a meeting-room. And if you behave yourself, he might put up with you, too." She twisted to give the boy in the back seat an encouraging smile. "He's nice, you'll like him."

Angel leaned forward between the two front seats again, to read the note in her hand. "Lancelot, huh?"

She said, "I'll get your stuff from my dad's house, and bring it by."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

 _(Now)_

 _I thought you might be interested to know, they found Candy. She's all right, too, for the most part, I guess they just had her holed up in another part of town. I haven't seen her, though, Gwaine said they'll be using her as a witness, too._

 _Gwaine said, they made a mistake leaving your phone on you. I figure, they thought I'd cut and run, instead of using it, or staying to be caught. And blamed._

 _Guess we were both lucky, Gwaine got there first._

 _You could wake up and tell him thank you. I already have, and probably he'd blow you off like he did me, but… that's worth waking up for, right?_

 _Your dad came by again earlier, I forgot to tell you._

 _Which is stupid when you think about it, because if you can hear me telling you now, then for sure you heard him, then, and you don't even need me to say, he came by…_

 _He's been busy, too, with the lawyer's side of this whole thing. I gotta admit, he took me by surprise, I was sleeping when he walked in, or I would've ducked again. But he wasn't mad, just sorta… tired. Sad. Made me feel worse than if he'd hollered and threatened and blamed me._

 _Gwen was here too, a couple hours this morning. She made me promise not to tell you what she said, or what happened, but… there was definitely a Sleeping Beauty moment. Only, it didn't work._

 _Please… please wake up. It's been five days now._

 _Arthur…_

 _…_

 _I remember waking up once on the floor of the upstairs hallway, crumpled up like a greasy cheeseburger wrapper. This was before Rosie._

 _Barbie was with me that time. It was nice of her really, but maybe I was just in the way…_

 _What the hell, Angel, she said._

 _She was crouched next to me because the floor was filthy with who-knows-what, balancing on this really loud pair of 3-inchers that didn't match anything else she was wearing, the blue miniskirt lost in the folds by her hips but her knees still clamped together so no one could get a glimpse that they didn't pay for first._

 _What the hell, Angel, she said, because she really was sick last night and stayed in. Just like she'd told Jeff when he was searching._

 _It was almost funny, like a tornado let loose in her room, he was so mad he couldn't find the cash he was sure she was hiding somewhere. He tossed her collection of boxes off the shelf, crackers and girls' crap, scattered and broken on the floor. Tossed magazines and lace underwear and he even threw a shoe that dented the plaster he was that mad._

 _I heard the noise coming down the hall, and every other girl eavesdropping, whooshed back into their rooms, like I was a tornado myself to blow them out of the way and slam the doors behind them._

 _Except for Barbie, because he was in her room. Her fake nails were fluttering she was so nervous, she begged and protested and tried to get him to believe her. There isn't any money, she told him, I wouldn't hide it, I wouldn't steal._

 _She already told me that, when I went to knock on the door because I collected the old man's cut of what they earned every night, because they all said that they preferred handing out to me instead of the looking at the fat man's sweaty snarly face._

 _And when I woke up and Jeff was gone and the wax and juice was oozing out of her cheap broken lava lamp – just like I felt, I remember, shapeless and slow, bubbles and lumps rising hot and helpless and then sinking chilled, over and over. And Barbie was waiting. She said, You should have let him search. He wouldn't have found anything._

 _I laid in the hallway until I felt like getting up again, just like I always did. I remember wondering if I had bones broken this time like the glass of that lamp, and I remember laughing at the water-stained ceiling plaster._

 _Because every time, it was Jeff who lost control. And he didn't even realize it._

 _I'm sorry, Arthur, that you had to._

 _I'm sorry I never told Angus my name, or Rosie either. Or you._

 _I'd tell you, though, if you'd promise to wake up._

 _Arthur? Arthur?_

 _…_

 _My name is Merlin._

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Three days was sufficient time.

For Gwen, who hadn't learned the particulars of _why_ , to forgive Arthur the punch to Angel's face, at least enough to treat him normally.

For the investigating officers to find the discarded weapon used in the attack at the park bridge – ballistics match to a handful of other crimes, but no prints. For them to arrest the fat man Fagin – and half the tenants of the big brick house – but not find Candy.

For half Arthur's scrapes to fade to new skin, the other half to scab over. For his muscle-ache to ease, and the bruises to show nasty. For him to begin to feel at ease with and appreciate their host, and for Angel to get restive.

"Knock, knock," Gwen's voice said, from the open doorway to the men's locker room. "Can I come in?"

Arthur was half-dressed, himself, standing between his open locker and the communal wooden bench behind. He glanced around – steam and soap-smell and other male voices from the shower area, but no one's modesty would be compromised by her presence.

"Yeah, come on in," he said, turning away from the door to claim his long-sleeve navy t-shirt with the PD logo from the bench.

"I get the captain switching up our shift – break up the routine – make it harder for Jeff's crew to mess with us," Gwen said. "But these hours are killing – geez, Penn. Wait."

His arms were in his sleeves, the rest of his shirt just over his head, when her hand caught up the material at the nape of his neck. He craned to look over his shoulder, confused; his partner in her purple canvas jacket was studying the remaining scrapes and bruises on his back, leaning sideways and frowning.

"I look like Angel, now," he said, not really trying to stop the grin. "Ain't I pretty?"

"Fishing for compliments doesn't suit you," she returned dryly. "Hm. Now I know why you've been riding tense and walking stiff the past three tours."

He faced forward again and dared, "Yeah, it goes all the way down, looking like that. There's one bruise on my tailbone –"

Gwen made a raspberry sound. "I'll take your word for that."

In spite of her sarcastic words, her fingers were gentle – so gentle on his bare skin that he couldn't help a shiver. Partners was an exceedingly close relationship, it couldn't help being, but this was… new. They were willing to risk their lives for each other, every day, but this sort of casually-intimate touch… He tried to hold still so she wouldn't notice his reaction – but he knew she noticed when she paused, though she didn't immediately retreat. He held his breath and did not look back to see what expression was on her face.

And a moment later she said lightly, "You ticklish, Penn?"

"Absolutely not," he said, more ready than she was, maybe, to turn it into a joke. "Your hands are cold."

She snorted, and pulled his shirt carefully down over his back and belt. "So how's it been going at Lancelot's? After the first day, I forgot to ask."

"It's all right," he admitted, straddling the bench to put on his shoes. Lancelot was unfailingly courteous, incredibly patient – it seemed he never forgot their unusual and unsettled circumstances, and cut both of them plenty of slack, even when Arthur did not _want_ to be cut any slack. But he'd been more than a bit surprised to realize the shy, startled, half-embarrassed act was not an act.

"I'm curious," Gwen said, kicking one leg over the bench and seating herself facing him. "Has Angel tried any of his hit-me tricks on Lancelot?"

"Not while I've been there." Arthur paused, his last shoe in hand, to wondering if Angel hadn't _at all_ , or only not while Arthur was around, out of consideration for what had passed between _them_.

"He's doing okay, otherwise?" Gwen asked. She hadn't seen Angel since the aftermath of the park incident.

"Going a little stir-crazy," Arthur allowed. "He hadn't got a job like me, or a –" he paused, wondering if it would be better to leave that sentence unfinished.

But Gwen noticed, and pursued. "Or a what?"

"Or a girlfriend. Like Lancelot." He fiddled with the gun in the holster strapped to his left shin – a constant, since the park - watching her but trying not to seem like it.

But her expression held only interest. "Oh, really? Anyone I know?"

"Monica? From the lab?"

"Oh, good, I like her."

Arthur kept his reaction internal – a bit surprised she wasn't more put-out, and yet relieved, at the same time. His generosity toward his host increased a bit. "He's been talking to Angel about that GED program at the civic center."

She made a face. "That place is a dump."

"It needs to be leveled," he agreed, "and rebuilt. But if a kid is determined enough…"

"Angel has determination in spades, seems to me." Arthur grunted, and Gwen smiled, slapping her knees lightly, before pushing to her feet. "Enjoy what's left of your night, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah…" His phone rang, but he waited to meet her last smile over her shoulder, before answering as the door swung shut. "Arthur Penn."

"Arthur, it's Lancelot."

"Yeah, what's up?" Arthur leaned to reach for his shoulder-bag.

"Is Angel with you?"

His heart skipped a beat, involuntarily. "No. Why, what happened?"

"I had that date tonight, right?" The shy lab tech sounded genuinely distressed. "He knew he was supposed to stay here, said he'd probably watch tv or something – but I just got in, and he's gone."

"His stuff?" Arthur said immediately.

"No, that's all here."

"What else, did he say anything else?" Arthur slung his bag over his shoulder, heading for the exit – the room, the floor, the building, paying no attention to fellow officers with a comment or a _good-night_. He didn't see Gwen at all.

"No. I mean, he said something about a sugar fix, but I assumed he'd just go to the corner store for something."

The night was black and windy, though a bit muggy rather than chill. He jogged to his car, and threw his bag into the passenger seat. "What did he say, _exactly_ , Lancelot."

A moment of silence for thought. "Something like… maybe I'll go see about some candy. I said, you've got a sweet tooth? And he laughed."

Arthur's internal litany of swear words spilled out. "Damn, damn, damn that kid! No, it was a person he was going to find, Candy. A hooker – she knew the gang that shot at us, that killed Angus, no one's seen her for a few days."

"Gosh, Arthur, I'm sorry." Quiet, and desperate.

 _No, it's not your fault. I should've –_

"Is there anything I can do?"

Arthur started his car, pulled out of the lot to drive one-handed, phone at his ear. "Well, I hope he'd be smarter than to go back to the house – though Fagin's in custody – maybe he knows where she picks up her customers? Wait – today's Wednesday, isn't it?"

"Yeah – Wednesday."

"He might've gone to the place he always goes on a Wednesday." Arthur named the motor shop, and its location. "Could you go by there, see if he's anywhere in the neighborhood?"

"Um… not immediately? I have… I have Monica here with me, I can't just..."

Arthur cursed again. Internally. "Could you call Gwaine then, see if he can scout that neighborhood? And –" his phone buzzed an incoming message – "call me if Angel shows up at your place!"

He ended the call in the middle of Lancelot's agreement and keyed for the message, glancing from screen to road and back again.

ALO. The number of the new phone they'd gotten for Angel last week when he'd agreed to stay, programmed under those initials in Arthur's contacts list. His little private joke.

 **Meet me at Johns Motors, in the back. Asap.**

Arthur breathed a sigh of relief. He was going to cuss the kid a blue streak for leaving Lancelot's – the whole point of a safe house was that you stay safely in the house. But, no harm done, he supposed, and wondered if Angel had found out anything about Candy. He'd be lying to say he wasn't a bit worried about her, too.

No lights on at Johns. But it was already an hour later than when Angel had slipped through the fence-hole, last week – only a week? – so, no surprise there. Arthur rolled his car down past the shop, turned in the one-way street facing the park.

Same deep shadows, same dirty-orange light. But the alley was deserted.

Arthur twisted to look out the rear window – no one. No movement. He turned back around, expecting to see Angel step out… wondering if he ought to hit the horn.

Nothing.

Maybe Angel wanted to tell him he'd changed his mind about the whole thing. Except, then he would have taken all of his things from Lancelot's, with him when he left. Maybe he'd found Candy like he'd found Rosie…

Arthur turned the key in the ignition to kill the engine, and listened for a moment to the wind outside the vehicle, the whisper-moan of a long-dead spirit.

Still, nothing moved.

Well, what else was he to do but drive away? Sit and wait, or get out – standing, pacing, searching, hollering, whatever – and wait. He reached for his jacket and stood up out of the car, slamming the door before shrugging into a minimal defense against the seasonal cool.

The wind picked up, uncanny in the deserted alley, more like a voice than ever. Or – voices. A scrape, like metal along concrete, or like a banging dumpster lid – Arthur alerted to the noise. Inside the back lot of the motor-shop, he thought, and started toward the loose corner of fencing. Maybe that foreman had stayed to wait with Angel for Arthur to come, or…

"Angel! Hey – Angel?" he shouted.

"Ar-"

A grunt – a moan, or was it the wind? But he was sure he hadn't imagined the almost-response. "Hey – where are you?"

"No! Ar-" A hiss of whispers, another scraping noise, someone in a coughing fit. Then Angel again, " _No_!"

Intuitively, Arthur understood the boy wasn't alone – or even _okay_. He came to the fence, reaching to his back pocket for his phone – whoever was with Angel had heard him call out and knew he was there, so he didn't have much time – bending to retrieve his personal back-up firearm from beneath his jeans'-leg.

Without warning, he was shoved face-first into the fence by a single hard point just to the left of his backbone, just lower than his shoulder-blade – just on a bruise, as it happened. His spine arched and he put up his hands automatically to catch himself as the chain-link clanged in protest against the vertical posts. Muscles tensed in readiness before mind registered the definition of that hard point as the barrel of a handgun.

Dammit all to hell. He hadn't heard, even noticed, someone else in the alley.

 _Fools rush in_ , he thought bitterly. _Where angels fear to tread_.

"Keep yer hands where I can see 'em, bud," a sneering voice said in his ear. "Flinch, and I fire."

The thing was, Arthur completely believed him. He held still, but his internal cursing took a turn for the truly profane; he wondered bitterly whether they'd picked Angel up in the vicinity of the brick house, or where.

"Lace your fingers on the back of your head, and don't let go," he was told. Then, fast and rough, the off-hand searched him through his clothes – found the pistol at his left ankle. And took it. The man raised his voice, "Jefe, I got 'im!"

Despair plucked at Arthur's courage, but he took a deep, steadying breath.

"Good – bring him in!"

Arthur obeyed the rude insistent nudge of the gun at his back, but slowly.

His training made him ready for anything – anything but passive capitulation, or the admittance, even to himself, that it would do no good. But also wary of provoking the violence he feared might be inevitable, at this point. If it was just him… but it wasn't. He couldn't fight for his life until he was sure it wouldn't endanger Angel. Death was threatened, but not imminent. He'd wait for a better opportunity, with actual odds of success. He needed to know how many there were, and where they were, if they were armed, what they'd done with Angel…

He had no doubt these men would kill them both – had brought them here for it, in fact – but… he wasn't dead yet. And he could hope for Gwaine – who ate, slept, and bathed with his extra pistol. He wouldn't show up unarmed.

Arthur only hoped it would be soon. He could play along til then. Because he _couldn't_ leave Angel – as citizen, as comrade – behind.

Squatting down, he shuffled forward awkwardly, the sharp edges of the loose sheet of fencing scratching at his clothes, his upraised elbow helping to shield his face. The man behind him had a handful of his shirt and jacket at the side of his collar as he struggle through also. The eye of the gun nestled cozily up to any number of vitals – heart, spine, lungs – and Arthur dared nothing, in case the trigger was pulled on accident.

"Walk forward," the man behind him ordered tersely, once they'd straightened up.

Arthur obeyed again. Perhaps if he was an action hero, he'd spin and disarm his opponent, fell him with a single punch and no one the wiser. Then he'd single-handedly surround his enemy – all conveniently dumb as a box of rocks – and employ some fantastically-risky but brilliant charade while the bad guys shot at shadows and _not_ at their hostage…

A single low streetlight illuminated the back lot, clogged with derelict vehicles. As they rounded the back of an old delivery van Arthur stopped short, heart in his throat.

Angel was crumpled on the ground, three men standing over him, a fourth a few paces further into the shadows. As Arthur watched, the street kid scrabbled a few inches up off the broken concrete – and one of the men gave him a vicious, full-strength kick in the ribs.

The boy dropped to his side, gasping and retching, obviously disoriented but still trying to drag his body away from further punishment. Another leaned down to grab a handful of his black hair, twisting the boy's already-bloodied face around to meet his fist.

Angel dropped. Movements now minimal, and heartbreakingly ineffective, and his head didn't lift.

Oh, it was so _wrong_.

Arthur had seen boxing matches as part of the force's training regimen; he'd even watched footage of street-fights and prison riots. He'd interviewed victims of assault, he'd seen evidence photos, he'd even seen a body or two on the ME's slab; he _knew_ it was possible to be beaten to death. But he'd never _witnessed_ this sort of sadistically one-sided violence. They were enjoying it, and by the look of the street kid, they'd been at it awhile already. Arthur's helplessness to do anything but watch was almost overwhelmingly nauseating.

All that, in the space of an indrawn breath, fast and brutal, and Arthur felt an edge of sharp panic at his throat as he yelled, "Stop it! Dammit, leave him alone!"

The man behind him wrenched against his reactive leap forward, as the other three turned to him, one putting his boot on Angel's shoulder to hold him down – firmly, by the grunt forced from the boy's body. They were wearing gloves, but nothing to cover their faces, and somehow that frightened Arthur more than anything else. And two carried handguns casually ready at their sides, pointed negligently at the ground – but that was still far too close to Angel.

 _Delay_ , Arthur thought, fatalistically calm. Gwaine would come, and see the car – they'd hear his bike, and be able to scream a warning… or some damn thing. _Hope_ , even illogically.

"Officer Penn, we've been waiting for you to join us." Arthur recognized the voice even without his captor's shouted identification, oily so-respectful-it-was-rude, before the speaker stepped forward. It was not red he saw, but orange, Angel's new phone in the gloved hand.

Oh, it had been so easy Arthur was shamed. At least Angus had been smart enough to know what he was getting into. Over the rail, for that boy…

Arthur enunciated deliberately, " _Jeff_."

He was prodded forward. Each step slow – delay – he looked for an opportunity, a distraction that would not simply be _go down fighting –_ and take Angel with him… and then what. Too many of them, he could never get hold of a weapon, get enough rounds off in time. Someone would point at Angel, and discharge.

"You're going to die tonight," Jeff informed him, almost gleefully. "But if you mind your manners, we'll let Angel live."

That illogical hope leaped up inside him like a bird with a broken wing. Not giving up, not just yet – though he did try to keep it from showing.

The man at his back yanked him to a halt four feet from Jeff; Angel sprawled just to the side. Not entirely unconscious, but so far from lucid as to be oblivious to his surroundings. And in pain, Arthur could tell – it was in the clawed tension in the boy's long artistic fingers, the way his lean body kept trying to curl up on itself, though too weakly to accomplish that defensive position.

"Why should I believe you?" Arthur said. His pulse was fast, but steady – so they were going to _negotiate_? He could deal with that – he could _delay_ with that.

"It don't matter none to me if you believe or not," Jeff said mockingly. "You'll be dead either way, so you'll never know. And there's nothing you can do about that."

He could fight. And die faster. And maybe, having just seen Angel killed first. No, he preferred it the other way around, he decided. Slim to none was still a chance.

"Is that what you told Ben Angus?" Arthur stalled.

"Ha! Hear that, boys, we got the right one," Jeff said to the others. "What is it about this _slop_ that brings the pigs running eager, huh? Get him up." He pointed his handgun at Arthur. "Get him down."

The man behind him kicked at the backs of his knees. Arthur tried to be passive-aggressive about resisting, but one of the others, a tall bullet-headed man with empty hands and bulging eyes that said _mean_ -stupid, came to help. Together they twisted his arms and clamped on the pressure points in Arthur's neck and shoulder muscles. As he cringed involuntarily away from that bright sharp stupid pain, they bore him down to his knees on the pavement. Both arms strained to the breaking point behind his back and his legs trapped – with the gun to his temple it was useless, but he couldn't help an occasional jerking struggle.

Cold with helpless rage – and no small amount of fear, as time and fate rolled inexorably onward, and none of it within his control - he watched the other two, weapons now stowed, haul Angel roughly upward, taking even less notice of his token and instinctive resistance than they'd taken of Arthur's.

They dragged the boy to a position facing Arthur, almost knee to knee, then had to hold him more-or-less upright; Angel's body sagged earthward, his head bobbed unsteadily. His face was swollen already in places and blood-streaked – Arthur hoped rather irrationally that the actual injury was small; head wounds did always bleed so much, maybe it looked worse than it was.

"Angel," Arthur said urgently, with some idea that this whole doomed situation would somehow go better if his friend was _with_ him.

Those blue eyes, dark in the darkness, found Arthur and _focused_ , and the slender body began to writhe for breath and freedom in earnest, like a fish on a hook. Every inhalation was a gasp of pain Angel made no attempt to hide. Arthur felt the echo of each one in the nerves of his chest, leaning forward as if he could offer consolation or surcease by his proximity.

Made worse by the realization that his fearless friend was _terrified_ , just to see him there with the others.

The man on Angel's left – Arthur recognized him for one of the Ivans – scooped one arm under Angel's, all the way up to take a handful of black hair in that hand. Then pressed his opposite forearm over the boy's throat, tight up under his chin, kneeling over the lanky scrabbling legs to maintain control over Angel's body with a horribly secure headlock.

Still Angel struggled, and it killed Arthur to stay still, knowing anything else wouldn't do any good. _Delay._

"Calm down, you're going to be okay," he tried to soothe him, calm the panic that thrashed through the boy. Arthur tried his own captor's grip again, just on principle, but it held.

Angel gurgled something desperate-sounding; that massive forearm wasn't going to let him speak. They were going to end up strangling him right in front of Arthur.

"Hey, Angel," Arthur tried again.

Jeff said, "Get that gun in his hand."

The fourth, a man remarkable only for his lack of height, went for Angel's right arm – flailing suddenly wild as the boy tried to buck and twist, grunting weakly. Shorty had his elbow, his wrist, fought to force Angel's fingers around the grip of Arthur's own back-up piece. And he _knew_ , by now.

Suicide. Accidental gas-leak explosion. They would kill Arthur, and make it look like Angel had done it.

Maybe even shove a nasty street-drug mix into the kid's bloodstream. If authorities caught him and tested him, after this was over, and he came up hot – and maybe even couldn't remember clearly himself, what had happened, everyone else would believe that the street kid had shot the cop who was trying to help him. _Half out of his head… drugs, they said initially…_ No matter what Gwen thought, or Gwaine. And his father surely would believe the worst, and blaming Angel, push for the harshest penalty.

Angel knew, too. He was totally focused on his captive right hand, still struggling with everything he had _not_ to cooperate, but it was clear that he was losing. His fingers were secured – damning prints – the first jammed inside the trigger guard. Shorty's hand wrapped Angel's to keep it in place.

To make sure that the trigger was pulled.

The barrel swung around toward Arthur's chest, both men nearly enveloping Angel with their bodies to make it happen.

Arthur yanked against the two restraining him hard enough to snap something in one arm, with a distant pain like the flick of a rubber-band – no such luck. They held him too tightly; they were too strong.

 _Gwaine, where the hell are you?_

Delay.

"Angel, look at me," Arthur said, feeling laughably calm. _They'll let me say my last words, won't they? Give me a minute…_ "Look at me. I forgive you. Okay? You remember that."

Angel whimpered, still in full-body revolt, though it was weak and ineffective and restrained. Tears made tracks in the blood on his face.

"GED, and paint," Arthur emphasized. "You _don't_ blame yourself, understand?"

The tip of the barrel pushed into his sternum, as his two captors pushed him forward to meet it, bruising him with the continued struggle for control of the weapon, then twitched a bit left. His heart pounded like a cross-country sprint, trying to escape the inevitable destruction, _centimeters_ away.

Angel abruptly calmed, taking heaving breaths through flared nostrils. His eyes flicked from the gun to Arthur's eyes, and _held_ , anguished. His body stilled, and that was okay with Arthur – if Angel wasn't fighting anymore, they might keep their promise to let _him_ live. At least.

Arthur said, with a sloppy sideways grin, "If you see Gwen, tell her –"

Sheer blue horror. He saw the shot anticipated in Angel's eyes, before it actually happened.

Still it seemed to him that the boy gave an almighty jerk at the last possible second – having lulled Shorty just enough by brief but evident surrender –

Then white-hot light exploded through the center of Arthur's body.

…

There was nothing. For a moment, or an eternity.

…

Then there was _everything_ , and all at once.

All sensation focused on the ragged hole torn through his body, tearing through his body again and again, flesh and muscle and blood vessel shredded, liquefied. Distantly he remembered how, in the movie _The Quick and the Dead_ , sunlight had shown through bullet holes, making a bright spot in the actor's shadow on the dusty street. Silly.

All was shadow… all was light.

So bright, so damned bright - you can burn yourself on a light bulb - stuck right in his chest and blazing a thousand watts. And he couldn't see. He smelled motor oil, and blood. Felt the grind of pebbles and glass below his knees on the broken pavement.

Someone was gasping his name, great gulps of agony.

Men mumbled with voices mocking, dispassionately departing, but he couldn't hear clearly through the ringing blasted eternally through his ears. Hands released his arms to heavy dead weight swinging at his sides.

The hands had released him, but he felt others, and relaxed into their hold as the light began to dim, the throbbing to fade. He thought of his father's hands, tossing him up in the air when he was small… so small… giggling in sheer delight. And his father was grinning.

Toss him lightly up, float him slowly down.

"Arthur," someone sobbed. His body rocked, rested back down. Someone was babbling nonsense – "Johns Motors, yes near the east side of the park, the back alley. Arthur Penn, he's a cop, he's been shot in the chest – there's blood everywhere but he's still breathing… what? No, I don't think so. Oh, hurry, please… Arthur?"

There were no stars tonight. Cloudy and windy, chance of rain… where did the homeless go when it rained?

He could see a dim green streetlight making a halo in Angel's disheveled black hair. Was he even a person, really? Or maybe a heavenly being, sent to test Arthur… to teach Arthur… or only to carry him home? Maybe Ben had sent him, maybe he was waiting for Arthur…

Maybe it had been his mother.

That idea excited him, he wanted to ask Angel – but the boy was leaning stiff-armed on his chest and he couldn't breathe and the pain was trapped in that hole like a wild thing, growling and snarling and snapping and digging to get out. He tried to push Angel away, and only managed a feeble twitch. The air roared through the echoed humming of death in his ears.

"Help me, dammit!" Angel screamed suddenly into the night. "Gwaine, they're gone! _I_ need you _here_! There's a hole in the fence, further along-"

The cold of the concrete was creeping upward, through Arthur's clothes, through his skin. Almost, it calmed the pain. He saw sparks, and maybe because he couldn't breathe. Maybe it was because he was breathing so fast and so shallow he was going to pass out.

Or maybe this was his introduction to the afterlife.

"Arthur? Arthur! Stay with me! Please, oh… don't leave me, dammit! Not you too! Come on, _fight_!"

He couldn't see Angel's face clearly, not with the streetlight behind him. Though he heard the anger and tears quite clearly.

 _But angels don't cry_ , a whisper reminded him.

Heat spun out from his chest like a supernova… then winked out.

* * *

 _My latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run  
My longest trials now are past, my triumph has begun_

 _Oh come angel band, come and around me stand_  
 _Bear me away on your snow white wings_  
 _To my immortal home_  
 _Bear me away on your snow white wings_  
 _To my immortal home_

 _I know I'm near the holy ranks, of friends and kindred dear_  
 _I brush the dew on Jordan's banks, the crossing must be near_

 _I've almost gained my heavenly home, my spirit loudly sings_  
 _The holy ones, behold they come, I hear the noise of wings_

 _Oh come angel band, come and around me stand  
Bear me away on your snow white wings  
To my immortal home  
Bear me away on your snow white wings  
To my immortal home  
_

" _Angel Band" ~ the Stanley Brothers_


	10. Warrior 2

**A/N: I know the lyrics are meant to be a love-song, but I think it fits a friendship like this, don't you?**

 **Part 5: Warrior** (cont.)

(Now and then)

Arthur was not aware of the moment when sensation returned, nor of the act of opening his eyes. He was indoors, and it was white and clean… and safe.

He heard a soft beeping, more distant ringing. Female voices both abrupt and compassionate.

A myriad of impressions was absorbed into one truth – life continued.

But what about –

He turned his head slightly on the pillow, moved his eyes, as Angel leaned forward into his vision. Leaned right on him – he felt the boy's hand on his arm – the one touch introducing all physical feelings. Heavy, sore, lethargic, uncomfortable.

There was an old bruise visible on the back of Angel's jaw, that Arthur didn't remember, and another crescent-shaped one that curved out from his nose. There were scabbed lines of split skin on his cheekbone, by his thick black brow. Past the first infliction, past the horrific few-days-later, on the way to _healing_.

But his eyes. Arthur was distracted from the confusion of _what happened_ , by the look in his friend's eyes – so anxiously hopeful, so confidently joyful –

"Arthur. Arthur?"

His mouth was too dry to speak, so he settled for blinking. And the first thing Angel said – past the decisions and mistakes and danger and pain Arthur remembered from when they'd seen each other last –

"My name is Merlin."

He understood. That was _thank you_ and _I'm sorry_ and _we're good_. And so much more.

Arthur choked a swallow and managed to whisper, "Nice to meet you, Merlin."

Which really was just as perfect a name for the unusual young man as Angel. But somehow _nice to meet you_ wasn't enough.

So he rasped, "Merlin… really? It's a… terrible name. No wonder you don't… tell anybody."

Merlin's face split with a wide, radiant grin, and he tossed his head back and laughed.

* * *

 _I cried a tear… you wiped it dry  
I was confused… you cleared my mind_

 _I sold my soul… you bought it back for me  
And held me up… and gave me dignity  
Somehow you needed me_

 _You gave me strength… to stand alone again  
To face the world… out on my own again_

 _You put me high… upon a pedestal  
So high that I could almost see eternity  
You needed me, you needed me_

 _And I can't believe it's you… I can't believe it's true  
I needed you… and you were there_

 _And I'll never leave… why should I leave, I'd be a fool  
'Cause I've finally found… someone who really cares_

 _You held my hand… when it was cold  
When I was lost… you took me home_

 _You gave me hope… when I was at the end  
And turned my lies… back into truth again  
You even called me friend…_

" _You Needed Me" ~ Anne Murray_

* * *

(Two years and some odd months later)

Arthur stood in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom he shared with his wife – room always and mirror, occasionally - half-dressed, black slacks and socks.

His white dress shirt hung open from his shoulders, one side of the undershirt peeled away to allow fingertips to explore his skin, eyes to examine the reflection of the scar that still fascinated him, even after all this time.

Small caliber. He'd been lucky.

He snorted. That is to say, after he'd been duped and ambushed and forced to his knees in the back lot of an engine repair shop for an execution-style shooting.

Lucky, even so. That his best friend had been there, and smart enough to manage to shift the weapon away from his heart. To slow the bleeding with his own bare hands, until emergency help could arrive. Lucky they didn't try to shoot him in the head.

"Something the matter?" his wife said, leaning out the bathroom door into the bedroom.

He hurried to begin on his buttons, but she wasn't fooled, was his sharp-eyed wife. She came to stand behind him, shoeless and perfect in a little black dress that somehow managed to be plain, modest, and sexy as hell. He had no idea if she was done with her makeup or not – hardly ever did, she always looked perfectly beautiful to him – but her hair had been gathered loosely in a fancy short braid at her spine, leaving tendrils to frame her face and a generous spill of dark curls the rest of the way down her back.

She wrapped her arms around his waist as he finished buttoning, one up over his ribs and the other nudging his belt, low enough to give him ideas.

 _Later_ , he told himself – and it helped when she moved that hand to snag his tie from the dresser next to the closet door.

"It's the tie that's the problem," he growled, in pretence that she probably saw right through. But he carried on, flipping up his collar as she draped the offending accessory over his shoulders. Ruby-red and emerald-green horizontal stripes, separated by thin lines of glittery gold. Garish, at best.

"What do you expect, it's Christmas," Gwen said comfortably, raising on tiptoes to rest her chin on his shoulder as he wrestled the knot into his tie.

"Christmas is over," he disagreed. "It's New Year's."

"Same decoration theme. Everyone else has to do it – and be glad I didn't get you the one with jingle bells."

"Everyone," he grumped, unwilling to concede to her good mood yet. "I bet this is why my father said he wasn't coming. I bet there is no meeting."

"He didn't say meeting, he said obligation." Arthur grunted, but could feel her smile into his shoulder. "My father and brother are wearing _matching_ ones," she added.

That helped. A little. And the thought that of course Percival would wear the requisite holiday accessory - and Lancelot, the ever-dapper. "You really think Gwaine is going to wear a tie at all? Weddings and funerals, he claims, and this is neither. And I've never even seen Merlin in a tie – you think he owns one?"

"He does now," Gwen said, and her dimple showed. "Come on, Detective Penn, we're going to be late."

That title felt good to hear after long last, and it didn't even bother him that the first part had been hers first – not after he'd gotten his name attached to her title. Mr. and Mrs. Detective Penn. He grinned and said exaggeratedly, "Yes, Detective Penn."

Even dressing up, his Gwennie was as fast and unfussy as she'd ever been after one of their tours as partners. He had to hurry with tucking in his shirt and fixing his collar and fitting his suit-coat, and was still tying his shoes when she appeared at the door, black-suede boots zipped, wool shawl wrapped, tiny crystal-studded bag dangling from her wrist, double-checking her earrings for security.

He took a moment – and his life in his hands – to wrap her in an impulsive bear-hug, in spite of her delicate finery. "I love you so much," he whispered into the fragrance of her hair beside her ear.

"Love you more," she returned, with a particular sort of affectionate impudence that he cherished. "Now come on, you know he'll never forgive you if we're late."

"He'd forgive me," Arthur disagreed, following her out into the dark night, where the Christmas lights of the neighborhood outshone the street-lamps. It smelled like snow, though there hadn't been any yet that year, and gasoline. If he listened hard he was sure he could hear sleigh-bells over the distant traffic noise of the city. "He just wouldn't let me forget it."

They drove in comfortable silence, the satellite radio in the car – an early present from Arthur's father that he suspected was as much for his promotion to detective as for the season – tuned to classic carols. And they weren't the last to arrive – at least two turn signals were blinking on vehicles in his rearview mirror when he turned into the parking lot – but neither were they first.

"It's impressive, isn't it?" Gwen said, leaning forward to view the city's new civic center, lit by specially-placed and holiday-themed spotlights.

"Impressive nothing," Arthur said. "What matters is if it works."

"There's the captain," she said, not arguing. "And Lancelot – I don't recognize his date." Arthur was too busy maneuvering into the parking space to look. "Is Gwaine bringing his partner?"

"I think it's more like, she's bringing him," Arthur said. "Would you get on the back of a motorcycle dressed like that, on a night as cold as this?"

Her answer was a single raised eyebrow to convey the knowledge that he should anticipate her reply.

The great lobby of the civic center was well-lit and well-populated. A young girl dressed as staff stood ready to greet them and hand them a glossy folded flyer.

"I don't need it," Arthur said, but Gwen accepted one with a smile and nod of thanks.

"I don't need it either," she said archly at his look, "but I want one of these to keep. He's going to be famous someday, you know."

It was an ad for the center detailing its commission, its primary sponsors, its construction history. Boring – but there was a page dedicated to the secondary attraction of the fundraiser. The center was complete, but the community juvenile outreach would always be able to use extra support. Before- and after-school programs – art, music, sports. Keep kids out of trouble, let them exercise a talent. Learn discipline, which would help them in school, which would help them in life.

Another female college student in black jeans and t-shirt with black-and-burgundy-streaked hair was in one corner with a keyboard and sound system, coaxing a jazzy seasonal atmosphere into the room.

There was a great wraparound reception desk to the right, and a stair that climbed to the second floor rooms, which would host classes from yoga to finger painting, and anything in-between they could get a teacher for. On the left, childcare rooms, and other doors that led further into the building. Weight rooms, an indoor track, even a racquetball court, he remembered from the plans, in addition to more popular sports' arenas.

In the center, but not in the way, two long buffet tables bore trays and platters and towers of hors d'oeuvres and finger-desserts. Gwaine was there already, Arthur saw, but couldn't tell if a tie was present or not.

"I don't see him," Arthur said, and she knew who he referred to by pronoun only. "Hope he didn't disappear again."

"If he did, he'll come back," she reassured him. "He always does." Arthur conceded the point with a grunt, and she added, "Where do you want to go first?"

"We've probably seen most of this," Arthur reminded her, but they inched toward the left, to the first display.

Arthur recognized the man standing before it, hands on hips, coat-tails spread. Leon Steele, with a sharp-eyed but well-endowed blonde at his side, quietly watching him more than she studied the artwork. After a moment he turned, linking his arm with the woman's with unconscious familiarity of years of intimacy. Arthur saw the gleam of unshed tears in Leon's eyes – just before he saw Arthur, and smiled.

He reached out his hand, and Arthur shook it, and neither of them had to say a word, before the couple moved off into the crowd.

Because the first organized display was a tribute, the subject so familiar neither he nor Gwen had to read the note-card explanation. Front and center, a portrait done in blended oils – an older man with a grim mouth and a twinkle in his eyes, who could have been anyone's grandfather, and wore a striped scarf draped around his neck. Orbiting the central painting were sketches – pencil, ink, chalk – one yellow-striped sheet, obviously a template for the oil portrait. Angus talking, laughing, staring thoughtfully into the distance.

"Wow," Arthur said, feeling his throat tighten.

"Percival did a really great job, didn't he?" Gwen murmured.

Arthur nodded. And after a moment managed, "I wish he was here tonight. To see this."

Gwen knew he didn't mean Percival, the agent and coordinator of the event. She said softly, "What makes you think he isn't?"

Someone behind them – fat-and-unhappy middle-aged socialite, he thought, by the brief glance over his shoulder – said to a companion, "Well, you know they're only displaying _his_ artwork because he used to _be_ homeless. It's all marketing, not talent."

Gwen caught his arm in a pinching grip as he was turning, and leaned close to murmur, "Don't. He wouldn't want you to." Merlin, or Ben? Arthur wondered, finding it much easier than it used to be, to control his temper. She added, "He'd laugh at them, you know he would." Ben's eyes seemed to twinkle at him as he moved away at her leading.

It was a good layout, Arthur – who didn't know a thing about art or its presentation – thought, as they moved from one arrangement to the next. Another oil-portrait tribute, to a thin pale woman who wore a green head-scarf and a loving smile – but the rest was a mix of quick but clear sketches, dreamy watercolor impressions, a handful of acrylic paintings Arthur knew had taken Merlin hours, in Ben's basement.

A few old things that Arthur recognized from the street boy's first cardboard folio. A few people he recognized. Most arrangements calculated – by Percival more than Merlin, he suspected – to influence emotion. The small and sordid and desperate of street-life; the freedom and optimism and hope of the city-scapes. Pride and shame. Scope and detail.

Life.

"I see Father and Elyan, I'm going to go say hi," Gwen murmured; he felt her slip away.

"What do you think?" another male voice asked behind him a moment later, and he turned immediately to shake Percival's hand.

One of the biggest guys Arthur had ever met; he hadn't an ounce of fat on him, and he was as habitually dapper in his dress as Lancelot. His little-boy grin – occasionally more youthful than Merlin's, as he'd had a more traditionally stable upbringing – split his square face with the high of achievement.

Pride in tonight's prodigy, pleasure at his own contribution, anticipation of the financial success of the night. Counted in donations for the center's program for underprivileged children, and the silent auction of nearly half the artwork on display for Merlin personally. The former street kid had confided in Arthur last week, he hoped at least to earn enough to resupply the studio section of his apartment in Ben's basement, which he now rented from Ben's sister. Tonight, Arthur would not be surprised to hear that it paid for another semester's tuition of community college.

"It's amazing," he said, casting his gaze around the room. "I don't know how I'm going to bring myself to walk out of here."

Percival's eyes sparkled. "When they shut off the lights and you can't see anything anymore…"

Arthur agreed with a grin. "Thank you so much for this. For everything you've done for him."

The big man shrugged. "He's done a lot for himself. It's not everyone who has the spirit and opportunity – and the friends –" he gave Arthur a little half-bow of recognition – "to rise above the lowest of circumstances. But…" his expression and tone lightened again – "I'm not sure he'll thank me just yet."

"Why not?" Arthur said.

"Have you seen him tonight?" For a moment they both searched the crowd, but unsuccessfully. "I had to talk to him back into this twice. He's still absolutely _jittery_ at the thought of strangers looking at his work."

"Not so good for an artist, huh?" Arthur said dryly, and Percival grunted agreement.

"Have you see the piece that's the focal point upstairs?" the agent added, tipping his head back to look up to the second-floor balcony, where glass panels topped by a brass rail provided safety. To Arthur's negative reply, he added, "I have a feeling he'd find you, there."

Arthur frowned at Percival, who obviously knew something he didn't, but the other just grinned and shrugged – and moved past Arthur to greet someone else.

Gwen was back, with Elyan at her side. "There's a painting on the second floor you both need to see," the quiet stocky fireman informed Arthur, obviously relaying information he'd already given his sister. "Is Gwaine here?"

Arthur swallowed his groan, wordlessly pointing out the most infamous detective of the Nineteenth to his brother-in-law, and saved his complaint for Gwen, as she dragged him toward the stair. "It's one of _me_ , isn't it?"

"I don't know, exactly, I didn't – oh, look there."

They stopped at the foot of the stair; Gwen gestured through a break in the crowd. A woman on her own, approaching middle-age – bleached-blonde hair in curls, heavy makeup. She was dressed in a black leather skirt several inches above her knees, paired with a fuzzy crimson sweater that flaunted a plunging neckline that was practically inappropriate for the weather. She looked uneasy, and Arthur thought about going to her, before deciding that attention would make her discomfort worse.

She caught sight of them, and Arthur's raised hand followed Gwen's by mere fractions of a second. Candy tentatively waggled her fingers in response, before hurriedly turning away to pretend interest – or to find some that was genuine – in the nearest collage.

"You can't save them all," Gwen said in Arthur's ear.

"I know."

"At least she's here, tonight… Come on, I'm curious to see upstairs."

He followed his wife – more than admiring the view, that little black dress was _hot_ on her – to the top of the stairs. Squeezing between well-dressed donors, they approached the central painting – it was large, was Arthur's first impression, and dark, done in blues and blacks – before his attention was caught, off to the side.

As Merlin straightened out of the embrace of the elderly woman he now fondly referred to as Aunt Gladys. Landlady and godmother and – yes, spinster aunt was about right. All her vague sisterly affection for Ben Angus seemed to have transferred to the boy he had died trying at least to protect, if not save.

Merlin looked up and saw him, and the fond appreciation he showed Aunt Gladys kindled to something fiercer when he grinned at Arthur. The young artist spoke to the elderly woman, who turned to find Arthur in the crowd, and waved her fingertips at him. Arthur returned the wordless salutation, and Gladys turned to peruse the sketches on the far wall, as Merlin headed for Arthur.

"I love the tie," he called over the last two people separating them, and Arthur gave him a half-hearted glare – that totally dissolved when he saw Merlin's.

Then he laughed outright. "Jingle bells," he said.

"What?" Merlin said, smoothing the tie defensively. "Gwen got it for me. And Janine said, without it I'd look like an undertaker."

He probably would. Tale and thin, with the contrast of pale skin and black suit, black hair combed too deliberately to the side for the more haphazardly-styled street kid Arthur had met two years ago. But…

"Janine?" Arthur said.

Merlin leaned sideways on the balcony rail. "The keyboard player."

Arthur glanced down, remembering. Burgundy highlights in black hair, black jeans and t-shirt. He wondered if _try, try again_ applied here, but decided not to ask. Yet.

"So what do you think?" Merlin added, a bit shy with self-consciousness.

"About?"

Merlin inclined his head and eyebrows to the painting. A group of four was just drifting away, and Gwen stood alone to one side, right arm crossed over her ribs to support the elbow of her left arm, that hand lifted to cover her mouth. In critical contemplation, in horrified shock, or anything in-between.

Arthur moved – to his perception, his steps slowed the closer he got, the less attention he paid to himself as it all gathered to the painting.

Blues and blacks, shadowed obscurity around the edges. Sparks of yellow-white-orange, clearly delineating the downtown buildings with light, seen from a close distance – and a rooftop. But the city-scape, while incredible, was not the focus.

A man stood at the edge of the rooftop, one foot up on the low parapet, in scrutiny of the city at once casual and intent - a superhero's human alter ego, it might be. Illuminated by some unseen light source, perhaps electric, perhaps the moon, his clothes indistinct – his hair gleaming dark-gold.

It was Arthur. And yet – even though Arthur had never seen himself from his own four o'clock – not quite. Just as the clothing hinted at police uniform… but not quite. The man, who might have represented Arthur, clearly watched over the city. A guardian, a protector.

And. Anchored up on the parapet just beside the man – a bit behind, to the viewer's perspective – was a life-size winged stone statue, done in an amazing blend of gray and green. Not quite a gargoyle, by the clear human features – also specifically familiar, prominent cheekbones and ears, full lips, yet not exact – but not yet a seraphim, by the clawed fingertips and crouched-forward stance.

The police-guardian stood close enough to touch the statue, actually within the curve of the extended right wing – separate, yet unified by the direction and quality of the gaze and expression, stone and flesh.

Gwen's fingers brushed Arthur's sleeve, which somehow prompted his gaze to flick sideways to the card next to the frame.

" _An Angel's Angel"_ (Not For Sale)

The words he'd never been good with piled up in his throat, and might've choked him, if he hadn't focused deliberately on breathing.

And he could've stood staring there all night, discovering detail after detail, except that Merlin hovered tense and uncertain at his other side – watching for _his_ reaction, in blatant disregard of his own masterpiece.

Arthur faced him, and still could not quite comprehend the complexity of his friend. How Merlin could show the world how he felt so clearly and so bravely, and yet doubt his reception from Arthur.

He stretched out his hand and grabbed Merlin's suit-jacket and fine white shirt at his shoulder. By Merlin's expression, he still did not understand, though he allowed Arthur to pull him closer – did not understand til Arthur's arms were around him. Brief, maybe, but tight and _telling_.

"It's for you," Merlin said breathlessly, hanging on also.

"It's beautiful," Gwen told Merlin sincerely, sliding in beside them, one arm around each, as Arthur released Merlin, except for a hand on his shoulder.

Arthur struggled to keep his tone even. "Thank you, Merlin. And… _Happy New Year_."

Whatever Merlin saw in Arthur's expression, after this reassurance from his wife, his eyes shone bright and happy in response – all the reward Arthur needed for what little he'd done.

"Hey," Gwaine said from behind Arthur. "How come I'm not in it?"

* * *

 **A/N: And that's a wrap! A general thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited, followed! A more specific thanks to: a narnian, who sounding-boarded my angst over doing justice to the homeless issue before I took the plunge of writing the first words; SkySorrow, who looked up all the music I referenced (impressive!); and Audriel and Assassin of Syria, who reviewed** _ **all**_ **the chapters (also impressive! thanks for sticking with me!)**

 **I have a handful of housekeeping-type chapters I want to add to various finished works (beginning with Blood Brothers?), so it'll be about a month before I begin another multi-chapter – and then, it's likely to be a sequel to an existing work… but that's as much direction as I can give for future plans, right now!**


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